West Virginia Blue
The Best Blogging Community in West Virginia Democratic politics, progressive policies, the good life and free living in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia.
According to the nearest neighbor analysis performed by Nate (a.k.a. poblano) of 538.com, Kentucky, North Carolina and Missouri are the states most like West Virginia.
With scores around 25 (on a scale of 0 to 100), West Virginia's "nearest neighbors" aren't all that close. Across all his analyses, the best fitting neighbors are NC and SC (71). Some states, like Utah, bottom out at 0 for all three nearest neighbors. Oddly enough, West Virginia is not one of the top three states most like any other.
The math part of his analysis is on solid ground, even if there's room to quibble on the variables used to match up neighbors. Nate chose variables based on what's most predictive for recent presidential voting patterns. For other purposes, other variables might be better.
Copyright 2011 West Virginia Blue
Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified.
This site exists thanks to financial support from BlogPAC, dedicated volunteers and participation by members of this community. The views expressed at West Virginia Blue belong solely to their respective authors.
