Iowans consider themselves more 'midwestern' than Minnesotans, study says
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - The Gophers took back the Floyd of Rosedale under a cloud of controversy, but it’s possible there was an even bigger battle being waged in the Minnesota-Iowa rivalry.
In a study done by Emerson College (in Boston!) and the Middle West Review (from the University of South Dakota…so better bona fides) Iowa’s residents identify themselves as "living in the Midwest" at a higher rate than us Minnesotans.
The final tally was closer than Saturday’s game with 96.7% of Iowans saying they live in the Midwest as compared to 96.5% of Minnesotans.
The study surveyed 11,000 residents in 22 states — the states considered Midwest and also surrounding states including Arkansas, West Virginia, Colorado, and Oklahoma — asking them if they consider themselves Midwestern. Not surprisingly Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota (93.8%), Illinois (93.8), and Wisconsin (93.6%) scored the highest in identifying as Midwestern.
"It is traditional to use the 100th meridian as a dividing line between the agrarian Midwest and the high plains," Jon Lauck the editor of the Middle West Review said in a press release. "But this data indicates that the Midwest extends farther west toward the Rockies and that few people identify as plainsmen. More than 40% of Coloradoans, mostly on the Eastern slope and closer to the Midwest, consider themselves Midwestern. Over half of Wyomingites do."
Confusingly, 66% of Oklahomans and 25% of Idahoans (!) consider themselves Midwesterners in the same study.