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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-16T04:02:52+00:00

Using jQuery, what is the easiest way to select an item in a drop

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Using jQuery, what is the easiest way to select an item in a drop down list using the text value.

For example, I have drop down list that has a list of states. And I have the text value of “PA”. I want to make “PA” be the selected value. What is the best way to do this using jQuery. I have been doing Google searches for hours and I cannot find an example to this question.

Note each item in the drop down list has a numeric key. And I know that $(#ddlStates).val(key) will select the value I want. However, I do not have the key only the test (“PA”)

Thanks for your help.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    To be 100% sure on the match you can do this:

    $("#ddlStates option").filter(function() {
  return $(this).text() == "PA";
}).attr('selected', true);

    What will probably work for your scenario is the :has() selector, less safe in others is just:

    $("#ddlStates option:contains('PA')").attr('selected', true);

    You can test it out here, you wouldn’t want to use this in other cases because it would match a substring, but since you have states, presumably all 2 letters it will work here. For other cases you can use the first method.

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