Which of the following is more conservative?

[Indy Texas]

Clearly the Sooners.

[Sol]

The Rhode Islanders. They'll be indisputably more fiscally conservative, and about evenly socon considering a good chunk of them will be conservative Catholics.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Wow, good question! I went with the Oklahoma group. Rhode Island doesn't have ideological divide between the parties - they are virtually all moderates. Oklahoma certainly has some true leftists like every other state, but the vast majority of its Democrats are just so far right or DINOs even at the state level.

The picture below is the boxplot of left-right ratings for the 2 parties in each state's legislature. Not exactly representative, but it can't be far off. Manipulated it in Paint to just get the two states, but the slightly off lines shouldn't affect interpretation:

[Miles]

Clearly the Sooners.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The RI Republicans are a much smaller group in proportion to the state. 40% or so of Oklahomans are registered Democrats. RI Republicans are about 10% of the state.  The majority of the people who vote Republican in a general election in RI in any given year are independents.  So I'd say that the vast majority of those who vote in the primaries (which either requires or leads to registration with that party) voted for Romney. And somewhere between three-fifths and three-fourths of Oklahoma Democrats voted for Obama. There are a lot of OK Democrats that are going to be more conservative than most RI Republicans, but there are also those who are decidedly to the left.

[muon2]

Wow, good question! I went with the Oklahoma group. Rhode Island doesn't have ideological divide between the parties - they are virtually all moderates. Oklahoma certainly has some true leftists like every other state, but the vast majority of its Democrats are just so far right or DINOs even at the state level.

The picture below is the boxplot of left-right ratings for the 2 parties in each state's legislature. Not exactly representative, but it can't be far off. Manipulated it in Paint to just get the two states, but the slightly off lines shouldn't affect interpretation:

To the extent that the legislature reflects the state, then the case for OK is pretty solid here. The chart merges social and fiscal votes into a single axis, so that's consistent with the question which did not distinguish between the two. The chart suggests that not only is the median OK Dem more conservative than the median RI Pub, but that the median OK Dem is conservative than the most conservative RI Pub in the legislature, though that is a small sample. It's also interesting to note how politically uniform RI is compared to the wide spread of ideological positions in OK.

[TDAS04]

Clearly the Sooners.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Probably Rhode Island Republicans, because virtually all Republicans are more conservative than Democrats nowadays.

[Boston Bread]

The Rhode Island republican electorate is more conservative; it's just that they vouch to elect moderate politicians so they have a non-zero chance of winning. OK democrats are still conservative though, since many don't even vote for moderate democrats come election day (although two-thirds still voted for Obama).

[Rockefeller GOP]

The Rhode Island republican electorate is more conservative; it's just that they vouch to elect moderate politicians so they have a non-zero chance of winning. OK democrats are still conservative though, since many don't even vote for moderate democrats come election day (although two-thirds still voted for Obama).

Considering how many old Dixiecrats probably just stayed home, that's still an insanely low number.

[IceSpear]

The Rhode Island republican electorate is more conservative; it's just that they vouch to elect moderate politicians so they have a non-zero chance of winning. OK democrats are still conservative though, since many don't even vote for moderate democrats come election day (although two-thirds still voted for Obama).

Moderate Democrats? Many of them don't even vote for very conservative Democrats.

[Beet]

Well if we look at 2012, Romney won the Rhode Island primary with 63% of the vote, whereas Obama won the Oklahoma primary, so unless you think Obama is more conservative than Romney, or if you think presidential primaries turn out a completely different group than off-year primaries, there is only one choice.

[Boston Bread]

If you pick a random OK Dem primary voter, 67% chance they voted for Obama.
If you pick a random RI GOP primary voter, 85% chance they voted for Romney.
So for the purposes of the thread, yes a random sample of RI GOPers is more conservative.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

The Rhode Island republican electorate is more conservative; it's just that they vouch to elect moderate politicians so they have a non-zero chance of winning.

Unlike the Republican electorate in nearly every other state.