West Virginia, the least "American" state

Here's a shocker: West Virginia's population looks least like the national average of all 50 states and the District of Columbia:

WASHINGTON (AP) — White, rural and homogeneous. New Hampshire and Iowa play big roles in choosing presidential candidates but don’t look much like the rest of the country.

A better bellwether might be Illinois. It’s the most average state, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the Census Bureau.

Illinois is the fifth largest state, with a big city in Chicago, rolling countryside in the south and a lot of sprawling suburbs. ...

The AP ranked each state on how closely it matched national levels on 21 demographic factors, including race, age, income, education, industrial mix, immigration and the share of people living in urban and rural areas. The rankings were then combined to determine the state that best mirrors the country as a whole.

Illinois was followed by Oregon, Michigan, Washington and Delaware. West Virginia was the least typical state — poorer, whiter, more rural — followed by Mississippi, New Hampshire, Vermont and Kentucky. ...

I have no intention right now of delving into the AP's methodology. But I do believe that this is a result of the economic malaise (to borrow a phrase from Jimmy Carter) that afflicts this state. As I've written before, we have so few immigrants here because there is so little money here and so few opportunities here. And, I dare say, immigrants -- legal or otherwise -- probably aren't as welcome here as they are elsewhere.

Back in 1982, I interviewed the colonel in charge of the Huntington District office of the Army Corps of Engineers. He remarked that he sensed locals didn't entirely trust him because he was from outside. There was a strange inflection in their voices when they asked, "You're not from around here, are you?"

Thoughts?