OK, here's another idea (and these are just ideas off the top of my head, not saying these are "right" mind you)
and this one fits better with what I originally had thought...

The poor vs rich angle
What I had in mind was more rural poor vs urban poor. The Rich seem to generally be Conservative/Republican (I think we can agree here? Plenty of exceptions to this "rule" but in general I think we agree?) I think middle class is pretty well split down the middle, that leaves urban poor vs rural poor.
Those States that have more urban poor people seem to be Blue (Democrat) while those with more rural poor seem to be more Red (Republican) The exceptions seem to be few (New England is the obvious exception).

Again, something that crossed my mind only with no real proof nor any deep thought, it's simply what crossed my mind when it was asked why this was the case.

ray

How are you defining serious candidate, and which ones of those have denied the science of evolution? Maybe you are right that the majority have denied evolution. But instead of assuming, why don't you prove it?

Serious? Is a serious candidate one who gets invited to debate?
Here's a comprehesive list that a science bloger put together of all the candidates positions ...Including those who don't get invited to debates. Romney and Huntsman seem to be outliers...(Buddy Rhoemer too, shame.)

http://www.lukesci.com/2011/09/06/all-o ... evolution/

from the blog, a pretty good summation of why these positions are important to understand.

Both climate change and evolution are often subjects on which people hold views that are determined by their ideology or religious attitudes, rather than a concern for evidence. Thus, the idea of collective action against a global climate threat might grate a libertarian more than some others because of the implication this might have regarding the foregoing of personal freedoms for a greater good. One can imagine how a denial of the science follows more easily from such a starting position. Similarly, denial of evolution follows more easily from a priori beliefs that God created everything and holy texts are infallible. That’s putting conclusions before evidence from the real world. And I should think a reality-oriented president would be best for the US and the rest of the world.

What a load of horse crap!
Climate Change is now "absolute"?
and belief in God is now irrational?
But it must be true, Ricky read it on the internet

...Lets get an atheist candidate and see how far that guy goes. (he would lose before he got to the first debate)

GMTom wrote:Climate Change is now "absolute"?

Fact is the climate is changing. The debate is wether we are mainly to blame and if yes what we should do about it. There's plenty of room there for disagreement between intelligent people on those topics. The stance "there is no change" is just factually wrong.

GMTom wrote:and belief in God is now irrational?

It might not be a nice thing to say about faith, but considering a definition of faith as "strong or unshakeable belief in something, esp without proof or evidence" i think it's accurate.

GMTom wrote:...Lets get an atheist candidate and see how far that guy goes. (he would lose before he got to the first debate)

Probably true

No proof?
Maybe not, but please explain how the universe, existence of anything came to be without a God. Big bang theory? OK< what caused it? Where did the gas come from? If something "always" existed, ummmmm, that's a belief in at least some sort of God isn't it? To simply say something has simply always existed, nothing made it, it was always there, science simply can never explain that, ever. Not a very rational a belief in the least.

And plenty of room for disagreement in global warming, then the science isn't "settled" now is it?
And that position that it isn't happening? Excuse me, but who claims change isn't happening? climate is and always has changed constantly, is MAN responsible for the changes? ...No doubt about it? Again, plenty of room for disagreement making it a non-issue as far as ones beliefs, UNLESS you want to take the side of this being infallible science, then you have a situation where someone has an unshakeable belief based on on something that is not fully proven. Seems to me the irrational position is the other way around!?

Oh, please can we not derail this into trying to argue with Tom over climate change?

It's not about who is 'right' or 'wrong', that I was asking about, and it's not likely to be resolved. It's a question of why people are voting is what appears to be a direct contradiction of their own stated financial interests.

GMTom wrote:OK, here's another idea (and these are just ideas off the top of my head, not saying these are "right" mind you)
and this one fits better with what I originally had thought...

And yay for that. I posed a question not knowing the answer. You provided a possible theory that answers it. I was able to show that the theory as stated doesn't match by testing it and showing the data.

As a result, you refine your theory.

SCIENCE!!

So now we see if the theory fits...

What I had in mind was more rural poor vs urban poor. The Rich seem to generally be Conservative/Republican (I think we can agree here? Plenty of exceptions to this "rule" but in general I think we agree?) I think middle class is pretty well split down the middle, that leaves urban poor vs rural poor.
Those States that have more urban poor people seem to be Blue (Democrat) while those with more rural poor seem to be more Red (Republican) The exceptions seem to be few (New England is the obvious exception).

Interesting. I wonder how much Federal spending there is on things that are more likely to be related to rural areas than urban ones?

For example: Agricultural subsidies clearly go to rural areas and probably help to subsidise wages for agricultural labour, and so is a good thing for the rural poor (and the rural landowners & farmers).

Also, in absolute dollars, rural areas tend to be poorer than urban ones (even though the cost of living is higher in the urban areas generally), and so Federal spending based on income of individuals or areas would tend to be higher there.

Rural areas tend to be more socially conservative than urban areas.

The ten least urban states (source the 2000 US census are:
Vermont, Maine, West Virginia, Mississippi, South Dakota, Arkansas, Montana, Alabama, Kentucky, North Dakota

Vermont was the only one that didn't vote Republican in 2008, and all got more Federal money than they contributed in tax.

The most urbanised states are:
Illinois
Arizona
Utah
Florida
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
Hawaii
Nevada
New Jersey
California

Utah and Arizona are Red states, but the rest all went blue. Some are net recipients of Federal dollars, but there seems to be more of a correlation than before.

Of course, that doesn't tell us how poor or not the rural and urban populations are, and that would be a more complex set of data to come up with. But it seems to me that it's likely that there would be a pattern.

I think we are closer. Ray Jay posited that many people vote out of habit (or even loyalty) more than out of a considered view of all policy issues. Also, that often people see social issues as more important than fiscal ones.

I have another theory as a factor:

I wonder how much Federal spending there is on things that are more likely to be related to rural areas than urban ones?

For example: Agricultural subsidies clearly go to rural areas and probably help to subsidise wages for agricultural labour, and so is a good thing for the rural poor (and the rural landowners & farmers).

Now, while Republican politicians don't generally support improved welfare, they are not as averse to agricultural subsidies. So perhaps in that area, there is an element of coincidental interest.

I also wonder whether there's a difference in how welfare programmes affect the urban and the rural poor (and also what the perception is).

Now ricky, Romney is a 'serious' challenger. He's running in second place in the polls. Calling him an 'outlier' would appear to be a little bit perverse. Just drop it, mmmkay?

Sorry, no science in my guess. It's simply what hit me without much thought in the least nor any attempt to prove it whatsoever, just a hunch that seems to be partly true? Your guesses may also play a big part in that as well.

oh, and another GUESS
Rural subsidies are well known by all who live there (Farmers and few laborers who usually will know where the tax dollars are being spent)
Urban areas would have their funding better "hidden"? Maybe a company is getting funding but who would know??? (generally speaking) that funding would not be as well known.
Again, just a hunch that just "feels right"

danivon

Now ricky, Romney is a 'serious' challenger. He's running in second place in the polls. Calling him an 'outlier' would appear to be a little bit perverse.

He and Huntstman appear to be different in their views then almost all others on evolution and climate science. Certainly different then those that participated in the debates. (The serious candidates) Which is what I meant by outlier... And thats certainly not perverse.
Tradional republicans trying to fit in with the dominant Tea Party in the nomination process...thats perverse.

and Tom, this isn't posted to make a statement about God or climate change. Its this that is key:

Both climate change and evolution are often subjects on which people hold views that are determined by their ideology or religious attitudes, rather than a concern for evidence.

If you have evidence that this statement is untrue, that would be interesting...

As Danivon is struggling to find a reason to explain the correlation between Red states and their being net recipients - you might look at s Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do by Ben Dobbins;
One of the most startling correlations is that Red states tend to have higher concentrations of people in fundamental religions.I don't know that this is in any way causal, but it does correlate.
From Google Books "

Yet states with a higher average income are more likely to support a Democratic presidential candidate. He discovered that wealthy voters in a poor state (e.g., Mississippi, with many poor) consistently support Republicans, while Connecticut, with many wealthy, regularly backs Democrats. Ohio is near the center of income distribution and alternates between the parties. This seeming paradox is lost on the media's talking heads because they focus only on the state-level data, leading them to the simplistic red-blue paradigm, ignoring the importance of individual voters' decisions. Gelman finds that the above relationships hold on a county level as well. After examining other factors such as religiosity and cultural values for clues to explain voting behavior,

But one of the things brought up is whether the citizens in the states actually know the reality of their status? Do Alabamans know that they are recieving more than they are contributing in taxes? Or Californians the opposite?
To a large extent that would depend on what media they listen to and what education level they have. I'll assert that people with a lower educational achievement tend to be less well informed . And the profiles of Red States tend to put them in the lower evaluated educational systems...
Or it may be that media as a whole, in all states has never really addressed this issue to any degree.

GMTom wrote:Sorry, no science in my guess. It's simply what hit me without much thought in the least nor any attempt to prove it whatsoever, just a hunch that seems to be partly true? Your guesses may also play a big part in that as well.

No, Science is the process I was describing of question, hypothesis, test, refine hypothesis, test etc...

I'm not sure if we can keep going without better data, but there we go. You and I were (between us) doing basic science.

oh, and another GUESS
Rural subsidies are well known by all who live there (Farmers and few laborers who usually will know where the tax dollars are being spent)
Urban areas would have their funding better "hidden"? Maybe a company is getting funding but who would know??? (generally speaking) that funding would not be as well known.
Again, just a hunch that just "feels right"

Certainly I expect that perception and reality differ. It's usually the case.

Ricky - that would definitely be another piece of evidence to suggest that social issues trump financial ones, and religion is quite a bit more compelling to many people.

Not sure I buy Ricky's suggestion. New England is quite religious and very Catholic. Catholic is pretty hard core as far as fundamentalism goes. New Mexico is heavy Catholic as well, I don't see any stronger evidence here than my own hunch, simply a few hits that sound good made to fit his suggestion.

Tom, Red State/Blue State looked at frequency of church going as a determninate of how religious a states citizens were. Unless I'm mistaken the Catholic Church has seen a significant decline in attendance since the 60's....
One may be a lapsed Catholic, still list one's religion as catholic and not be a strict adherent to its fundamental beliefs and creed.
Where the Catholic church continues to have strong attendance, and where it makes up a large segment of the states populace at the same time, I would bet the profile of the State would look more like the Red States. More but not identical...
The fundamental Christian protestant church is different than the Catholic Church in that for most of the fundamentalists the Bible is an inerrant source of revelation, whereas the Catholic belief system is centred more in the Church. Catholics have been able to be quite liberal in their personal lives and still exist comfortably within the Church, as long as they outwardly adhere to the ceremonies and tradition. However that is less likely to be the case with fundamental protestants.? (Failed televangelists, and diddling priests providing immediate low grade fodder for this comparison.)

I know that church attendance is not necessarily a specific requirement for a person to be a strict adherent to a religion, but I think in a broad demographic study its a pretty good indicator of one's adherence.
When Pew studied religion and social attitudes around the world, conservative Muslim countries shared a lot of the expressed attitudes that one finds in conservative US states. Islam, sharing many of the same attitudes about things like sexuality, sexual equality, etc. as fundamental Christianity. It may seem strange, but with a more tolerant attitude towards Muslims, conservatives might find a great breeding ground for republican voters in that religious minority than any.

GMTom wrote:Not sure I buy Ricky's suggestion. New England is quite religious and very Catholic. Catholic is pretty hard core as far as fundamentalism goes. New Mexico is heavy Catholic as well, I don't see any stronger evidence here than my own hunch, simply a few hits that sound good made to fit his suggestion.

He did point to a book, which seems be stronger than a 'hunch'.

But I would want to query your use of 'fundamentalism' in connection to the Catholic Church. 'Fundamentalism' is about returning to the basis. For Christians, that is the Bible (as it is the Koran for Muslims). When it comes to the Protestant Reformation, what happened was that Luther, Calvin et al were opposed to the Catholic dependence on structure and tradition and wanted to move towards a more scripture-based religious system. This was largely an outcome of the emergence of printed Bibles and translations into native languages, bringing it to a much wider audience.

While Catholicism has moved towards a scriptural bent, it is still very much hierarchical and based on ceremony and practice and deference.

And, as ricky observes, Catholics can be very lax in their practice (and the whole confession thing does mean people feel less bound to obey the rules all the time, knowing that telling the priest and doing some penance will wipe the slate clean.

Additionally, there is a strong opposition to the Death Penalty in the RC Church (not observed in many Protestant fundamentalist traditions), and then there's the whole 'liberation theology' thing.