The Midwest: one region or two?

[Docere]

Thinking about this more.

While there are two rather different regions, the eastern Great Lakes and western Farm Belt, there are some features that are common across the region:

The corn belt runs from Ohio right out to Nebraska and South Dakota

There's a strong German heritage throughout

It has a history of being more anti-war or isolationist (look how well Obama did across the Midwest, the Iraq war was especially unpopular in the Midwest. It's certainly a lot more dovish than the South and perhaps more than the Tri-State (if not New England)

There's less hierarchy than in the Northeast and South and more of a tradition of populism

The Midwest is the whitest of the four Census regions. Every state is whiter than average, except for Chicago-dominated Illinois which is the state that comes closest to the national average in terms of demographics