The only thing I can come up with is that state government is not the source of handouts and transfer payments. They actually have to balance budgets and have some level of fiscal sanity, so republicans dominate. The federal government is th main source of transfer payments, so if you have your hand out, or expect to in the future, you vote for liberals.
No?
Ehhh, wrong.
States such as the ones you mentioned are able to elect Republicans to statewide offices because they tend to be more closely aligned ideologically with the people who voted them in, as opposed to people running for national office. Presidential candidates have to create many images of themselves to serve the most number of voters. People are more trusting/understanding of their own state officials though, and are much more apt to "forgive" them if they step out of line once every four years. For example, voters consistently rate their own Congressmen as better than all of the others, despite the fact that they rate the rest pitifully low (consider also that these same voters probably don't know jack about many of the other Congressmen). It's a loyalty thing. It has nothing to do with budgets, or handouts (as the rightwing likes to think).
Oh, and states do offer their own forms of "handouts." And...they don't actually have to balance their budgets Hence the reason so many states have budget issues!
Upvote
0