Similarly, "liberal" covers both people who distrust wealth and corporations, and progressives who want society to evolve and improve, prioritizing quality of life and individual freedom over tradition.
New data on R&D spending as a percentage of state GDP supports the idea that conservatives resist novelty while progressives embrace it. States investing more in R&D, aiming to change the world, voted overwhelmingly for Biden in 2020. Conversely, states spending less on R&D favored Trump. The contrast is striking: the 10 states with the highest R&D spending voted for Biden by an average margin of 19 points, while the 10 states with the lowest R&D spending backed Trump by 18 points.
Data on the 10 states with the most and least R&D spending below.
Source for data here:
https://www.bea.gov/news/blog/2024-05-09/experimental-rd-value-added-statistics-us-and-states-now-available
https://www.bea.gov/news/blog/2024-05-09/experimental-rd-value-added-statistics-us-and-states-now-available
