…or something like that.

So, this was an attempt by CNN Polling Director Keating Holland to rank the states in how much like the nation each state is. The lead starts out with a statement about Iowa and New Hampshire, so I can only assume that this was done in order to make some statement about the primary system.

Holland identified 12 key statistics — four that measure race and ethnicity, four that look at income and education, and four that describe the typical neighborhood in each state — and added up how far each was from the figures for the average state on each measure.
Holland said he chose these 12 different categories because “they have a strong impact on the political landscape in every state.”

Yeah… it seems to me that a lot of different people would have a lot of different viewpoints on what has “a strong impact on the political landscape in every state” and I even strongly suspect that it is different for each state. So it’s my suspicion that this really has no meaning at all. Oh, wait…

“It’s important to note that there are hundreds of ways of making this same calculation, and dozens of states could all make a legitimate claim to being the most representative state in the nation,” Holland said.

So, yeah, I was right. It has no meaning other than Georgia is, according to a somewhat arbitrary metric, 9th in something.