How patriotic are Californians? Less than people in most other states, survey says

Californians may not be that patriotic compared to their peers in other states. At least that’s the conclusion of one new survey.

The survey released Monday by the site Wallethub.com found only four states with lower rates of patriotic sentiment. Montana was ranked as the most patriotic state, followed by Alaska, Maryland, Vermont and New Hampshire.

New York was ranked the least patriotic state in the country. Other than California and New York, states ranked at the bottom were Michigan, Connecticut and Florida.

The site compared states using two broad categories – military and civic engagement. California ranked 31st in military engagement and 44th in civic engagement.

Within those two categories, the site looked at 13 metrics. For military engagement, WalletHub looked at average military enlistees per 1,000 civilian adults between 2013 and 2018, veterans per 1,000 civilian adults, active-duty military personnel per 100,000 civilian adults and the share of the civilian adult population in military reserves.

For civic engagement, the site looked at nine metrics that included the share of adults who voted in the 2020 presidential election, the share of adults who voted in the 2020 primary elections and the volunteer rate.

The voting data, which was collected by the United States Election Project, has California ranked in the middle. The state was 24th in turnout rate for the 2020 presidential election as 67.4% of voting-eligible adults cast their vote.

California was ranked 48th in veterans per capita and 46th in volunteer rate.

Each state was awarded points for these metrics. California had a total score of 27.75 while the leading state, Montana, had a total score of 61.91.

This story was originally published June 21, 2021 at 2:49 PM.