Trump vote vs. Average SAT score

This graphic illustrates the percent of the vote total Donald Trump received from each state (top map) and the average SAT score of entering freshman for each state’s flagship public university. Both were obtained from data published by the responsible state officials (for the vote totals) and by the universities (normalized for the new (2016) SAT scoring system). The darkest red in the top map represents the highest vote percent for Donald Trump and in the lower map, it means the lowest average SAT score.

Note that blue (top) represents all non-Trump votes, not necessarily a vote for Clinton, since in some states (e.g. Utah)  third party candidates received significant votes. The universities selected were the premier public university in the state, excluding specialty schools such as engineering or arts. The District of Columbia had no qualifying universities since all the public universities were specialty schools (e.g. military/intelligence).

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