Looks to be fairly accurate.
I am a bit surprised that Kentucky is rated that bad.
When you have a multifarious phenomenon and you try to boil it down to one score, you will see weirdness of this kind. The ethos in Lexington and Louisville is not the same as that in Appalachia, but weighs more heavily on the demographic scale.
And Illinois being “better” — get outta here. Maybe if Chicagostan were excluded.
The last “Freedom in the 50 States” release I saw had Tennessee in the top 3... I wonder what happened. Plus, I doubt the weighting if Floriduh is #1.