NYS - An "Educated' State Supports Obama

New York State led the way as an "educated" state supporting the re-election of President Barack Obama last week.

New York Votes Overwhelmingly to Re-elect President Obama

Only Washington, DC and Vermont voted to re-elect President Obama with larger margins than New York State. An impressive 63% of New York State residents voted for the President, more than the margins in Massachusetts, Maryland, California, and other reliably Democratic states.

While the United States Constitution and New York State law conspire to make the margin of victory irrelevant, our state should be proud of the margin and of its leading role in the President's re-election. All but two states (Nebraska and Maine, which both award electoral votes by Congressional District and then give the two additional electoral votes to the winner of the state-wide vote) award all of their electoral votes to the candidate that wins the most votes for President in their respective states. Therefore, New York provided more electoral votes than any state other than California or Florida (New York and Florida provided equal numbers of electoral votes at 29) for the re-election victory. But, while the 29 electoral votes from New York would have gone to President Obama whether he won by one vote or won one hundred percent of the vote, New York's strong support for the President helped his campaign focus on states that provided more of a challenge. The successful campaigns in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Colorado can be traced to the reliability and the promise of a wide margin provided by our great state.

Obama Sweeps Top 10 Most Educated States

President Obama won each of the 10 most educated states, and the President lost all but one of the least educated states.

New York is the largest state in the group of most educated states.

Here are the 10 most educated states, with those Obama won underlined. The percentage of residents over 25 with a college degree is in parentheses:

Most educated states	Least educated states
Massachusetts (39.1%)	West Virginia (18.5%)
Maryland (36.9%)	Mississippi (19.8%)
Colorado (36.7%)	Arkansas (20.3%)
Connecticut (36.2%)	Kentucky (21.1%)
Vermont (35.4%)	Louisiana (21.1%)
New Jersey (35.3%)	Alabama (22.3%)
Virginia (35.1%)	Nevada (22.5%)
New Hampshire (33.4%)	Indiana (23.0%)
New York (32.9%)	Tennessee (23.6%)
Minnesota (32.4%)	Oklahoma (23.8%)

The President also swept the 10 states that pay the most to teachers. New York State is second only to California in size amongst states with the highest teacher salaries.

Here are the best and worst states for teacher salaries, with states Obama carried underlined and average salary in parentheses:

States with highest average teacher salaries	States with lowest average teacher salaries
California ($63,640)	South Dakota ($35,378)
Connecticut ($60,822)	North Dakota ($38,822)
New Jersey ($59,584)	Mississippi ($40,182)
New York ($59,559)	West Virginia ($40,531)
Massachusetts ($58,257)	Utah ($41,156)
Illinois ($58,246)	Montana ($41,225)
Maryland ($56,927)	Missouri ($41,751)
Rhode Island ($55,956)	Nebraska ($42,044)
Michigan ($55,526)	Maine ($42,103)
Pennsylvania ($54,970)	Oklahoma ($42,379)

 

New York was an important part of an important victory for our country. We are a large states with a highly educated workforce and a reliable set of electoral votes for the Democratic candidate for President in a general election.