A new report in advance of July 4 ranked all 50 states based on 12 factors to determine which are most patriotic.
The study, conducted by WalletHub, used factors like military engagement and civic education to create the ranking scheme, which determined the most patriotic state for 2016 is Virginia.
Virginia placed first with a score of 69, followed closely by Alaska at 67 and South Carolina at 62.
New Jersey, on the other hand, came in dead last, mostly because of its low military and civic engagement. Connecticut came in second to last and New York in third to last.
The findings reveal that red states are more patriotic than blue states. Red states on average have a ranking of 22.5 out of 50, whereas blue states only score 28.3.
Part of the reason Alaska ranks so highly is because it has the highest number of veterans per 1,000 residents. In Alaska, there are 100.8 veterans out of every 1,000 residents, for a rate of 10 percent. That’s twice as high as New York.
Georgia is home to the highest percentage of residents who enlisted in the military.
For civic engagement, Minnesota has the highest percentage of residents who voted in 2012 for the presidential election, at 74.37 percent. In contrast, Arizona comes in the lowest on the metric at 37.98 percent.
Perhaps because of its high Mormon population, Utah has the highest volunteer rate in the country at 45.2 percent, with Idaho and Nebraska coming in second and third, respectively. Louisiana has the lowest volunteer rate. (RELATED: 2015’S List Of Most Patriotic States Just Came Out. Where Does Yours Rank?)
Some of the other metrics for civic engagement included frequency of Google searches for American flags, volunteer hours per resident and number of Americorps volunteers.
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