Ahead of what’s sure to be a hotly contested presidential election in November, partisans are likely to be disappointed with the answer evident in U.S. News & World Report’s annual Best States rankings: Political leanings may have less to do with excellence than one might expect.
Broadly speaking, blue states – meaning those who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 – fare better in the 2024 edition of the rankings in such areas as health care and the environment. But a number of red states – those who opted for former President Donald Trump four years ago – account for many of the nation’s top performers in the economy and fiscal stability categories.
Overall, when state performances are assessed across the eight total categories in the Best States rankings, the top 10 breaks down cleanly – and perhaps appropriately for a divided nation.
There are five red states, along with five blue states.
Browse Photos of the 50 States
Red vs. Blue in the Overall Rankings
A look at the intersection between states’ excellence – or lack thereof – and their left vs. right leaning indicates what’s working is a political and policy mix, particularly among the top 10 states overall.
The No. 1 state is red Utah, followed by blue New Hampshire. Third is red Nebraska, fourth is blue Minnesota, fifth and sixth are red Idaho and Iowa, seventh and eighth are blue Vermont and Washington state, ninth is red Florida and 10th is blue Massachusetts.
Utah – the top state in the rankings for the second year in a row – scores particularly well on education, ranking second nationally on an assessment that incorporates the state’s relatively stellar eighth-grade reading and math scores, among other metrics. Utah comes in third on economy, particularly excelling in labor force participation and business creation. No. 9 Florida posted a similarly strong showing, ranking first in both economy and education, thanks in large part to higher education metrics like low tuition and fees and economic metrics like gross domestic product growth.
New Hampshire, meanwhile, posted the second-lowest rates of violent and property crime in the country – fueling its No. 1 ranking in crime and corrections – and also ranks in the top 10 for economy, education, opportunity and environment. No. 10 Massachusetts ranks second in health care, third in education, fourth in crime and corrections, seventh in natural environment and eighth in economy.
Location, Location, Location?
Top-performing states – along with the bottom 10 – display some regional patterns.
Red states in the top 20 of the overall rankings, for example, mostly come from the Great Plains and Mountain regions of the U.S., while red states in the bottom 10 are disproportionately located in the South.
The state that ranks 50th overall is Louisiana, with other low-ranking states in the Deep South including Mississippi (48th), Alabama (44th) and South Carolina (41st). Other bottom 10, solidly red states nearby are Arkansas (47th), West Virginia (46th) and Oklahoma (43rd).
Only two states that went for Biden in 2020 land in the bottom 10 overall: Michigan at No. 42 and New Mexico at No. 49.
Notable absences from both the top and bottom 10 include most of the nation’s most populous states, which are clustered around the middle of the rankings. Florida, the nation’s third-most populous state, ranks ninth, but the other five biggest states in population all rank between 23rd (New York) and 40th (Pennsylvania).
The 2024 Swing States
The seven swing states identified by U.S. News as being critical to the outcome of the 2024 election between Biden and Trump stretch roughly across the country and land in both the top and bottom halves of the Best States rankings.
- Wisconsin – No. 17, performs best in opportunity (No. 5)
- Georgia – No. 18, performs best in infrastructure (No. 14) and environment (No. 14)
- North Carolina – No. 19, performs best in economy (No. 11) and fiscal stability (No. 11)
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