Being an avid science fiction reader and an obsessed SyFy channel fan, I've contemplated what this genre has done for entertainment. Although science fiction is mostly very fanciful the genre's tie with the subjects of science and society seem to provide a connection with modern society.
Defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica science fiction is a,
“[...] A form of fiction that deals principally with the impact of
actual or imagined science upon society or individuals”.
For example, when Stalin led Russia he had demanded that artists focus on promoting socialism. The genre of “scientific socialism” was born and created a breathing space for science fiction in Soviet Russia. Not to mention, a chance for Russians to not only embrace science fiction but love it. Even after the fall of the socialist party Russia has continued to match U.S. production of science fiction literature. 
Cover art from the book, "We", published by penguin classics.
http://unsleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2009/08/yevgeny-zamyatin.html
Socialist science fiction literature shows how easy it is to integrate science fiction with the promotion of politics. Considering this I wondered whether the genre in the U.S. leaned either to the left or to the right in politics. When contemplating what has defined science fiction recently in U.S. entertainment such movies like Avatar and Star Trek Enterprise and shows like Dr. Who and fire Fly came to mind. All of which tend to send more liberal messages. I then made the assumption that science fiction was more liberal. With this assumption I produced the hypothesis; The more liberal affiliation an individual has, the more likely they will prefer the genre of science fiction (due to the assumed liberal “theatrics” of science fiction)
To research this hypothesis I looked at the most recent list of science fiction conventions provided by Wikipedia (their sources provided on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/united_states_presidential_election,_2008) in each state. I added the amount of conventions each state held in the past twenty years or were going to hold in 2012 and then compared this data to the state political affiliation in both the presidential elections in 2008 and the gubernatorial elections in 2010.
With Texas being the exception (held 6, holding 4), the states with more science fiction conventions held, tend to be democratic in the 2008 presidential elections, making a visual of a spectrum of red to blue. However, besides the fact that this experiment shows no causation, the significance of the results compared to the correlation during the 2010 gubernatorial elections, is not significant. I also looked further back, all the way to the election of president Clinton. No true significance was found.
I realized after my research that my hypothesis should have been very different. Instead of my hypothesis being what it was, it should have been simply; Science fiction has an overall political leaning. I have personally seen liberal messages within the science fiction I have read and watched on screen but maybe this is because I've sought these out because I am a liberal.
“68% of liberals seek out entertainment that contains political themes and commentary” (Norman Lear Center and Zogby International).
I've found that the bases for my original assumption can be mirrored by those from total different political stances. For example, an editor from Tor Books, a highly respected twenty year running publishing company, is quoted by Locus Magazine, “'Libertarianism is very much part of the intellectual argument of science fiction,' says longtime Tor editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden. 'It’s impossible to be a part of the argument of science fiction without engaging both broad libertarian ideas and also specifically the whole American free market intellectual tradition'”.
It's been found that, “Liberal are almost twice as likely as conservatives to read literary fiction (20% to 11%) and they're also more likely to read science fiction/fantasy than moderates (13% to 8%)”, so maybe liberals have become a target audience considering recently popular science fiction films and shows show liberal political leanings. However, the genre on a whole does not belong to one political group or another... forever anyway. Also, my research has shown that science fiction can be interpreted to be inherently any political affiliation. Though my bias may remain, I know that the war over science fiction is like any war over who is the best author. The political leaning is up to author and so is the caliber of story telling. So, let the best man win and let the Sci Fi fans enjoy the frenzy.
Encyclopedia Britannica. “Science Fiction”
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/528857/science-fictio
List of Science Fiction Conventions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_science_fiction_conventions.
United States Presidential Election 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008
“Tor's World Without Death or Taxes”
http://reason.com/archives/2008/11/13/tors-worlds-without-death-or-t/singlepage
Norman Lear Center and Zogby International, “Extensive National Survey on Politics and Entertainment”
http://learcenter.org/pdf/PoliticsSurveyRelease.pdf
Kayla, your embedded Wikipedia link (in the sentence beginning "To research this hypothesis") is broken. It also seems misplaced, as the natural link there would be to Wikipedia's list of science fiction conventions.
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