A new report from the Center for Legislative Accountability (CLA) has ranked all 50 states from most to least conservative, with Alabama leading as the most conservative state in the U.S. and Massachusetts as the least conservative.
The rankings from CLA, a project of the Conservative Political Action Committee and the American Conservative Union, are based on the conservative voting records of lawmakers across 186 policy categories in 2021.
For example, Alabama lawmakers voted last year with a conservative position at the highest rate, or 74 percent of the time. Massachusetts lawmakers voted with the conservative position just 15 percent of the time, the lowest rate.
Overall, the nation has grown more polarized, according to the CLA finding.
The 3,906 Republican state lawmakers in the U.S. voted conservative 80.8 percent of the time in 2021, up from 76.4 percent in 2020.
The 3,223 Democratic state lawmakers voted conservative 15.9 percent of the time, down from 18.7 percent in 2020.
Here are the states ranked from most to least conservative.
Top 25 most conservative
- Alabama
- Tennessee
- Indiana
- South Dakota
- Arkansas
- Florida
- Idaho
- Wyoming
- Iowa
- West Virginia
- Oklahoma
- Ohio
- Mississippi
- Kentucky
- North Carolina
- Georgia
- North Dakota
- Kansas
- Utah
- Louisiana
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- Wisconsin
- Montana
- Michigan
Top 25 least conservative
- Massachusetts
- Hawaii
- Rhode Island
- California
- Maryland
- Vermont
- New York
- New Jersey
- Connecticut
- Oregon
- Nevada
- Colorado
- Delaware
- New Mexico
- Illinois
- Washington
- Maine
- Minnesota
- Virginia
- Alaska
- New Hampshire
- Arizona
- Pennsylvania
- South Carolina
- Texas