7 ms·

Does any state (short of maybe California, I suppose) make it on the front page of HN as much as Colorado?

by jahlove 3y ago

simlevesque 3y ago
New York ?
hesdeadjim 3y ago
Well, we're a very polarized red/blue state, a tech hub, and the source of most of the water for the entire southwest.
- kyrra 3y ago
  Colorado has not been a purple state in 8+ years and is going more solid blue by the year. In the 2022 election, there was one thought to be close statewide election. It was a blowout, 55.9% dem, 41.3% GOP. The 2020 presidential election had very similar results. https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/colorado/ https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/colorado/
  - hesdeadjim 3y ago
    Aggregate stats are nice when it comes to presidential, but we still have a bunch of reps like Boebert who cause havoc in DC.
    - caseyohara 3y ago
      Aggregate stats give a clearer picture of statewide politics though. Boebert wasn't elected by the whole state, only the 3rd district. And we have two Democratic senators now. That's perhaps the best indicator that Colorado is hardly polarized.
    - eyelidlessness 3y ago
      Sure, but every US state has such a local split. It’s relative to the proportion and size of dense urban areas, and has been at least since the early aughts. But every “coastal liberal” state (or whatever the “blue state” signifier is) swings sharply conservative as you trek out to less populated areas, with very rare exception. And every “red state” has at least a small island that deviates leftish, even Wyoming.
      - narendasan 3y ago
        Clearly you haven't been to Colorado Springs, the second largest city in Colorado
        eyelidlessness 3y ago
        I haven’t, but a few searches seem to reinforce my point. What am I missing from afar?
        narendasan 3y ago
        Think of Denver (700k) vs. Colorado Springs(450k) like SF(800k) vs. Oakland (450k) but unlike Oakland which is __roughly__ an extension of SF politics, CO Springs is deeply conservative to Denver's deep liberalism. CO Springs is home to the Air Force Academy and a number of military installations which underlies its politics. Its a "dense urban area" whose politics happens to be conservative. The skew left or right in Colorado typically comes from voter turn out in other areas of the state, e.g. Arapahoe, Jefferson, Boulder, Douglas and the swing of independent voters which makes up 45% of the electorate.
        dredmorbius 3y ago
        There are cities which run conservative. Bakersfield comes to mind in California, also roughly the size of CS, at 403k population. The urban/rural alignment of liberal v. conservative politics is a good general rule of thumb. There are always exceptions. But even (or especially) in deeply-conservative states, cities tend to be far more liberal. Salt Lake City (Utah), Austin (Texas), and Atlanta (Georgia) are particularly strong examples.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- caseyohara 3y ago
  Colorado used to be very polarized, but that's not so true anymore. It leans pretty strongly blue now: > Biden won Colorado with over 55% of the vote, and by a victory margin of 13.50%, an 8.6 percentage point improvement on Clinton's victory in the state four years prior, the strongest Democratic performance since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and the first time that it voted for a presidential candidate of either major party by a double-digit percentage since Ronald Reagan in 1984. > In this election, Colorado weighed in as 9.1% more Democratic than the nation as a whole. The results established Colorado as a Democratic stronghold, rather than the Democratic-leaning battleground state it had been for the past three election cycles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Colorado#:~:text=On%20the%20day%20of%20the,it%20voted%20for%20a%20presidential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia...
  - epmatsw 3y ago
    It helps that the Colorado Republican party is about as ineffective of a political group as I've ever seen. If they were even moderately competent Boebert's district, Colorado Springs, and to a lesser extent the new district (Caraveo's) would be much redder than they voted the past cycle.
  - method_capital 3y ago
    Good lord. Not voting for trump doesn't make us "blue".
  - narendasan 3y ago
    The national political lens is probably the absolutely least informative way to understand Colorado politics. CO politics isn't just a miniature version of the national debate. Our governor is a libertarian in all but name. 96% of the bills in the legislature were bipartisan sponsored last year. 45% of the state is unaffiliated with a party and in 2022, the majority of them voted in the republican primary over the democratic one. The rest of the electorate is split down the middle D and R.
thomasjb 3y ago
Principality of Sealand?
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  1,477 results, just edging out Michigan (see my earlier comment).
dredmorbius 3y ago
So, I just manually checked via Algolia for total story mentions for all time as of this writing. Keep in mind that this is not front-page mentions necessarily, though it might be possible to crawl the "past" links to get those: <https://news.ycombinator.com/front https://news.ycombinator.com/front>. Maine (22,890) and Iowa (19,353) both beat out Colorado and California. Why the Maine love I've absolutely no idea. "Washington" appears 22,246 times, though that's massively confounded by appearances of "Washington Post" (18,634). Adding "state" as a qualifier (e.g., "state of..." or "... state") reduces that to 461 instances. "Seattle" alone appears nearly 5,000 times which would be 9th overall (sorry, Florida). "Redmond" gives another 892 occurrences. Colorado is actually 11th most frequently occurring state name. If you include cities and toponyms from within California (SF, SJ, Los Angeles, SD, SV, Hollywood, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Stanford, etc.), there are well north of 30k mentions of the state or regions within it. 10 most mentioned: ME (22,890), IA (19,353), CA (10,839), NY (9,009, including NYC matches as they're within the state), IN (6,151), TX (5,603), OH (5,085), FL (2,556), VA (2,369, excluding WV). 10 least mentioned: SD (93), RI (98), NH (136), ND (150), NE (159), WV (161), SC (178), WY (209), NM (213), VT (229). Data (with additional cities/regions or confounding searches listed for some cases): Alabama: 372 Alaska: 1,127 Arizona: 914 Arkansas: 264 California: 10,839 (Cities/regions: San Francisco: 7,221, San Jose: 493, Los Angeles: 1,540, San Diego: 732, Sacramento: 187, Silicon Valley: 13,782, Hollywood: 3,050, Palo Alto: 833, Menlo Park: 120, Redwood City: 33, Santa Clara: 199, Santa Cruz: 96) Connecticut: 1,369 Colorado: 1,633 Delaware: 612 Florida: 2,556 Georgia: 1,350 Hawaii: 883 Idaho: 274 Illinois: 789 (Chicago: 3,634) Indiana: 6,151 Iowa: 19,353 Kansas: 573 Kentucky: 301 Louisiana: 294 Maine: 22,890 Maryland: 921 Massachusetts: 620 Michigan: 1,456 Minnesota: 530 Missouri: 314 Mississippi: 248 Montana: 486 Nebraska: 159 Nevada: 580 (Las Vegas: 582, Reno: 84) New Hampshire: 136 New Jersey: 491 New Mexico: 213 (Albequerque: 48, Los Alamos: 89) New York: 9,009 (New York City: 1,905, Manhattan: 2,355, Wall Street: 2,934) North Carolina: 368 North Dakota: 150 Ohio: 5,085 Oklahoma: 277 Oregon: 911 Pennsylvania: 358 Rhode Island: 98 South Carolina: 178 South Dakota: 93 Tennessee: 287 Texas: 5,603 Utah: 1,005 Vermont: 229 Virginia: 2,530 (less West Virginia: 161) Washington: 22,246 (though many confounding matches: Washington Post: 18,634, Washington + state: 461, Washington DC: 369, Washington D.C.: 112. Seattle: 4,958, Redmond: 892.) Actual is closer to 461. West Virginia: 161 Wisconsin: 387 Wyoming: 209

Does any state (short of maybe California, I suppose) make it on the front page of HN as much as Colorado?

simlevesque 3y ago

New York ?

hesdeadjim 3y ago

Well, we're a very polarized red/blue state, a tech hub, and the source of most of the water for the entire southwest.

kyrra 3y ago
Colorado has not been a purple state in 8+ years and is going more solid blue by the year. In the 2022 election, there was one thought to be close statewide election. It was a blowout, 55.9% dem, 41.3% GOP. The 2020 presidential election had very similar results. https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/colorado/ https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/colorado/
- hesdeadjim 3y ago
  Aggregate stats are nice when it comes to presidential, but we still have a bunch of reps like Boebert who cause havoc in DC.
  - caseyohara 3y ago
    Aggregate stats give a clearer picture of statewide politics though. Boebert wasn't elected by the whole state, only the 3rd district. And we have two Democratic senators now. That's perhaps the best indicator that Colorado is hardly polarized.
  - eyelidlessness 3y ago
    Sure, but every US state has such a local split. It’s relative to the proportion and size of dense urban areas, and has been at least since the early aughts. But every “coastal liberal” state (or whatever the “blue state” signifier is) swings sharply conservative as you trek out to less populated areas, with very rare exception. And every “red state” has at least a small island that deviates leftish, even Wyoming.
    - narendasan 3y ago
      Clearly you haven't been to Colorado Springs, the second largest city in Colorado
      - eyelidlessness 3y ago
        I haven’t, but a few searches seem to reinforce my point. What am I missing from afar?
        narendasan 3y ago
        Think of Denver (700k) vs. Colorado Springs(450k) like SF(800k) vs. Oakland (450k) but unlike Oakland which is __roughly__ an extension of SF politics, CO Springs is deeply conservative to Denver's deep liberalism. CO Springs is home to the Air Force Academy and a number of military installations which underlies its politics. Its a "dense urban area" whose politics happens to be conservative. The skew left or right in Colorado typically comes from voter turn out in other areas of the state, e.g. Arapahoe, Jefferson, Boulder, Douglas and the swing of independent voters which makes up 45% of the electorate.
        dredmorbius 3y ago
        There are cities which run conservative. Bakersfield comes to mind in California, also roughly the size of CS, at 403k population. The urban/rural alignment of liberal v. conservative politics is a good general rule of thumb. There are always exceptions. But even (or especially) in deeply-conservative states, cities tend to be far more liberal. Salt Lake City (Utah), Austin (Texas), and Atlanta (Georgia) are particularly strong examples.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
caseyohara 3y ago
Colorado used to be very polarized, but that's not so true anymore. It leans pretty strongly blue now: > Biden won Colorado with over 55% of the vote, and by a victory margin of 13.50%, an 8.6 percentage point improvement on Clinton's victory in the state four years prior, the strongest Democratic performance since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and the first time that it voted for a presidential candidate of either major party by a double-digit percentage since Ronald Reagan in 1984. > In this election, Colorado weighed in as 9.1% more Democratic than the nation as a whole. The results established Colorado as a Democratic stronghold, rather than the Democratic-leaning battleground state it had been for the past three election cycles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Colorado#:~:text=On%20the%20day%20of%20the,it%20voted%20for%20a%20presidential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia...
- epmatsw 3y ago
  It helps that the Colorado Republican party is about as ineffective of a political group as I've ever seen. If they were even moderately competent Boebert's district, Colorado Springs, and to a lesser extent the new district (Caraveo's) would be much redder than they voted the past cycle.
- method_capital 3y ago
  Good lord. Not voting for trump doesn't make us "blue".
- narendasan 3y ago
  The national political lens is probably the absolutely least informative way to understand Colorado politics. CO politics isn't just a miniature version of the national debate. Our governor is a libertarian in all but name. 96% of the bills in the legislature were bipartisan sponsored last year. 45% of the state is unaffiliated with a party and in 2022, the majority of them voted in the republican primary over the democratic one. The rest of the electorate is split down the middle D and R.

thomasjb 3y ago

Principality of Sealand?

dredmorbius 3y ago
1,477 results, just edging out Michigan (see my earlier comment).

dredmorbius 3y ago

So, I just manually checked via Algolia for total story mentions for all time as of this writing. Keep in mind that this is not front-page mentions necessarily, though it might be possible to crawl the "past" links to get those: <https://news.ycombinator.com/front https://news.ycombinator.com/front>. Maine (22,890) and Iowa (19,353) both beat out Colorado and California. Why the Maine love I've absolutely no idea. "Washington" appears 22,246 times, though that's massively confounded by appearances of "Washington Post" (18,634). Adding "state" as a qualifier (e.g., "state of..." or "... state") reduces that to 461 instances. "Seattle" alone appears nearly 5,000 times which would be 9th overall (sorry, Florida). "Redmond" gives another 892 occurrences. Colorado is actually 11th most frequently occurring state name. If you include cities and toponyms from within California (SF, SJ, Los Angeles, SD, SV, Hollywood, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Stanford, etc.), there are well north of 30k mentions of the state or regions within it. 10 most mentioned: ME (22,890), IA (19,353), CA (10,839), NY (9,009, including NYC matches as they're within the state), IN (6,151), TX (5,603), OH (5,085), FL (2,556), VA (2,369, excluding WV). 10 least mentioned: SD (93), RI (98), NH (136), ND (150), NE (159), WV (161), SC (178), WY (209), NM (213), VT (229). Data (with additional cities/regions or confounding searches listed for some cases): Alabama: 372 Alaska: 1,127 Arizona: 914 Arkansas: 264 California: 10,839 (Cities/regions: San Francisco: 7,221, San Jose: 493, Los Angeles: 1,540, San Diego: 732, Sacramento: 187, Silicon Valley: 13,782, Hollywood: 3,050, Palo Alto: 833, Menlo Park: 120, Redwood City: 33, Santa Clara: 199, Santa Cruz: 96) Connecticut: 1,369 Colorado: 1,633 Delaware: 612 Florida: 2,556 Georgia: 1,350 Hawaii: 883 Idaho: 274 Illinois: 789 (Chicago: 3,634) Indiana: 6,151 Iowa: 19,353 Kansas: 573 Kentucky: 301 Louisiana: 294 Maine: 22,890 Maryland: 921 Massachusetts: 620 Michigan: 1,456 Minnesota: 530 Missouri: 314 Mississippi: 248 Montana: 486 Nebraska: 159 Nevada: 580 (Las Vegas: 582, Reno: 84) New Hampshire: 136 New Jersey: 491 New Mexico: 213 (Albequerque: 48, Los Alamos: 89) New York: 9,009 (New York City: 1,905, Manhattan: 2,355, Wall Street: 2,934) North Carolina: 368 North Dakota: 150 Ohio: 5,085 Oklahoma: 277 Oregon: 911 Pennsylvania: 358 Rhode Island: 98 South Carolina: 178 South Dakota: 93 Tennessee: 287 Texas: 5,603 Utah: 1,005 Vermont: 229 Virginia: 2,530 (less West Virginia: 161) Washington: 22,246 (though many confounding matches: Washington Post: 18,634, Washington + state: 461, Washington DC: 369, Washington D.C.: 112. Seattle: 4,958, Redmond: 892.) Actual is closer to 461. West Virginia: 161 Wisconsin: 387 Wyoming: 209