I actually did find something in what appears to be a web blog about this, but it is from the 2000 election. It looks like Democrats and Republicans are about equally intelligent. I do personally believe that Republicans are more selfish, and less concerned with social problems. I also saw statistics showing that the higher your level of education was, the more likely you voted for Bush in 2004. This was not so true in the large cities, where educated intellectuals did turn out for Kerry.
Which party is smarter: Republican or Democrats?
I don't know of any legitimate IQ data by state, although they may well exist. As a rough proxy, however, we can use the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress achievement test scores for public school eighth graders.
Combining the Math and Reading scores, we get the following table. (You'll note that rock-ribbed Republican Montana and South Dakota, which The Economist claims are over 1.5 standard deviations stupider than liberal Connecticut, actually outscored that New England state on the NAEP!)
Rank
Top States
2000
M+R NAEP
Rank
Bottom States
2000
M+R NAEP
1
Massachusetts
Gore
560
41
Arizona
Bush
526
2
Minnesota
Gore
559
41
Tennessee
Bush
526
3
New Hampshire
Bush
557
43
Arkansas
Bush
524
3
North Dakota
Bush
557
44
Nevada
Bush
520
3
Vermont
Gore
557
45
Louisiana
Bush
519
6
Montana
Bush
556
46
California
Gore
518
7
South Dakota
Bush
555
47
Hawaii
Gore
517
8
Iowa
Gore
552
48
Mississippi
Bush
516
9
Colorado
Bush
551
49
Alabama
Bush
515
9
Connecticut
Gore
551
49
New Mexico
Gore
515
9
Wyoming
Bush
551
51
D.C.
Gore
477
Overall, the averages (not weighted by population): Gore States 539.6; Bush States 538.7. That's less than a single point difference on a scale that ranges 83 points from liberal Massachusetts down to the ultra-liberal District of Columbia.
A simpler and perhaps better approach is to look at the educational attainments of Gore and Bush voters according to the 2000 VNS exit poll:
Vote by Education
% of All Voters
Gore
Bush
No H.S. Degree
5%
59%
39%
High School Graduate
21%
48%
49%
Some College
32%
45%
51%
College Graduate
24%
45%
51%
Post-Graduate Degree
18%
52%
44%
If you weight this data on a 1 to 5 scale, with the high school dropouts as 1, then the two candidates are almost exactly equal once again. Bush edges out Gore by the meaninglessly tiny margin of 3.29 to 3.28. This means the average Bush and Gore voters both fall between "Some College" (3.0) and "College Graduate” (4.0).
Gore did better among those claiming post-grad degrees, but many of the Democrat voters were schoolteachers holding degrees in Education. Also, in the 2002 House races, according to the long-delayed VNS exit poll data that was finally released in 2003, "Republicans won for the first time in decades among those claiming to have post-graduate degrees. They even captured a majority of women with college or post-graduate degrees."
So I'd call this dispute over which party is smarter a dead-even toss-up. And silly.
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