political leaning of states with no death penalty

[Bill McBlueState]

This may not be surprising to many people, but there's a
strong tendency for states with no death penalty to also be
"blue" states.  Democratic values and opposition to
the death penalty go hand-in-hand.  Below, N_blue is the
number of times the Democratic candidate for President won
each non-death-penalty state in the last four elections.

State            N_blue
-----------------------
Alaska           0
Hawaii           4
Iowa             3
Maine            4
Massachusetts    4
Michigan         4
Minnesota        4
New Jersey       4
North Dakota     0
Rhode Island     4
Vermont          4
West Virginia    2
Wisconsin        4

There's something about state-sanctioned killing that clashes
with the rest of our party's values.

[Blue_In_AK]

1. Alaska has never had a death penalty

although periodically there have been calls for one after particularly bad murders. While this has been a Republican state for a while now, when the state was being organized and our constitution written, etc., it was far more Democratic, so some really good ideas have lasted, including our very strong privacy clauses which allow us to have legalized marijuana and pro-choice protections, as well as no death penalty.

[defendandprotect]

2. I'm so happy about NJ overturning the death penalty!!! Hope more states will follow ---

[defendandprotect]

3. ...and a huge smack in the face to the distorted thinking of the r-w Supreme Court ---

[Bill McBlueState]

4. good point about the supreme court

We need to do something about the federal death penalty, as well as in the states.