National Merit and the Election

[coureur]

<p>You can see an interesting trend if you rank states by 2005 NM cutoff and then look at who carried the state in the election:</p>

<p>State NM Cut-off Carried by<br>
DC 222 Kerry
MA 222 Kerry<br>
MD 222 Kerry
NJ 221 Kerry
CT 220 Kerry
DE 220 Kerry
VA 219 Bush
NY 218 Kerry
GA 217 Bush
CA 216 Kerry
HI 216 Kerry
IL 216 Kerry
NC 216 Bush
TN 216 Bush
TX 216 Bush
WA 216 Kerry
MN 215 Kerry
NH 215 Kerry
PA 215 Kerry
FL 214 Bush
KS 214 Bush
ME 214 Kerry
OH 214 Bush
OR 214 Kerry
MO 213 Bush
CO 213 Bush
SC 213 Bush
VT 213 Kerry
IN 212 Bush
AK 211 Bush
AZ 211 Bush
RI 211 Kerry
WI 211 Kerry
AL 210 Bush
KY 210 Bush
MI 210 Kerry
LA 209 Bush
NM 209 Bush
IA 209 Bush
ID 208 Bush
NE 208 Bush
OK 208 Bush
MT 207 Bush
NV 207 Bush
SD 205 Bush
UT 204 Bush
ND 204 Bush
MS 203 Bush
WY 203 Bush
AR 202 Bush
WV 202 Bush</p>

<p>Ave. cutoff for a Kerry state = 216.4, higher than all but two Bush states.
Ave. cutoff for a Bush state = 209.9, just below the lowest Kerry state.</p>

<p>Cutoff for unit with highest Kerry support (90%): DC = 222
Cutoff for state with highest Kerry support (68%): MA = 222
Cutoff for state with highest Bush support (71%): UT = 204</p>

<p>I'm not sure what all this means, but I sure find it interesting.</p>

[zantedeschia]

<p>That's like the one for IQ by state. I don't think these things really mean anything though. Sad Democrats trying to comfort ourselves. ::sigh::</p>

[shennie]

<p>The big flaw in your theory is that you are assuming that equal percentages of students take the SAT in each state. However, very low numbers of students take it in the midwest compared to the coasts (which is part of the reason that the cutoff scores are lower in the mid part of the country).</p>

[jaug1]

<p>Shennie..this is not the SAT, it is the PSAT, which everyone (at least I know of) takes.</p>

[uc_benz]

<p>What it means is Bush won the election. Nothing more, nothing less.</p>

[vancat]

<p>Who usually votes for who?</p>

<p>Smart people who vote Republican
-business people and professionals</p>

<p>Dumb people who vote Republican
-stupid country rednecks</p>

<p>Smart people who vote Democrat
-young college educated</p>

<p>Dumb people who vote Democrat
-poor uneducated blacks in the city</p>

<p>See, I can make pointless and irrelevant generalizations too. YAY...</p>

[feuler]

<p>shennie, while you are correct that there are other factors that show that there is no real conclusion here (I'm sure this thread is for amusement anyway), your logic doesn't make sense.</p>

<p>If more people take the PSAT, that does not necessarily drive the selection score up. If anything, it would drive it down, because if more people take the test, more people will get semi-finalist status. Since most good testers are going to take the test regardless, more people taking the test would drive the top 1% score DOWN, not UP.</p>

<p>Regarding this thread, cool idea. Of course to draw any conclusions would be bullsh!t, but it's still fun to pretend. While we're on the topic of fun observations: have you noticed how the Kerry states just happen to coincide almost exactly with the only places in the U.S. you would ever want to live? I find that amusing.</p>