All Intensive Purposes

Courtesy of TaxProf Blog, these maps reflect that states in which the median income for a family of four exceeds the nation median income (blue in the top map) tended to vote for Kerry in the last election (blue in the bottom map). By my count, only six states were exceptions to this rule: Oregon and Maine voted for Kerry despite having lower median incomes, and Alaska, Colorado, Ohio and Virginia for Bush despite having higher median incomes.

Median incomes (2003 census data):


Electoral college (2004 election):


Hawai'i should be blue on that lower map.

TaxProf Blog links to a bunch of interesting related posts, too. For example, he explains that red states feed at the federal trough, and blue states supply the feed.