CNBC sounds like a business channel, but it’s really just another liberal channel. When it thinks about the best “states for business,” they’re matching that with what they call “quality of life.” Some measures – health care, crime – make nonpartisan sense, but CNBC adds grades for “inclusiveness,” “protections” against discrimination, anti-gun "reforms," and naturally, “reproductive rights.” They touted their ongoing winner -- Vermont, the Bernie Sanders State:  The best states to live in for 2026: No. 1 has a six-year winning streak The best states are the most liberal states? Scott Cohn's report on Minnesota gives you a flavor: Minnesota offers among the nation’s strongest guarantees of reproductive rights, according to analysis by the Guttmacher Institute. While there are few issues more divisive than abortion, the economics of it are becoming increasingly clear-cut since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision returned the jurisdiction to the states in 2022. A 2025 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found abortion bans “increase net migration outflows” and that ”(t)he effects are more prominent for single-person households than family households, which may reflect larger effects on younger adults.” So being anti-baby is pro-business. Liberal groups are brought in to testify on behalf of blue states:  The North Star State also offers strong protections against discrimination, and it earns a near-perfect score from Oxfam America for its worker protections such as the right of workers to organize. In Maine, the Giffords gun controllers are the experts:  After a horrific mass shooting spree in 2023 in Lewiston that left 18 people dead, Maine legislators passed a series of reforms that earned the state “most improved” honors in 2024 from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Cohn really stretched on behalf of Democrats in the Virginia section. Republicans have succeeded in reducing crime, but he wants to spread credit to the Democrats who came in and promptly imposed some gun control: With just 218 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2024, Virginia had one of the lowest violent crime rates in the nation, according to FBI statistics. Ceasefire Virginia, launched in 2022 under Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares, both Republicans — and continuing under their Democratic successors, Abigail Spanberger and Jay Jones — targets gun violence in 13 municipalities in the Commonwealth with increased penalties for possession and use of firearms by convicted felons. An analysis of the program last year by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Public Policy credited it with a 10% decrease in homicides statewide through 2024, including a 24% reduction in homicides in Ceasefire localities.  Back in 2023, CNBC's Cohn picked all blue states for his top ten. This time, there were a couple of states Trump won in 2024, Nebraska and North Dakota.