It’s funny that we assume the blue/red state breakdown that really, for the most part, only goes back to Dubya. Seriously, as recently as 1996, Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arizona voted for Bill Clinton (and it wasn’t even very close in those states, either). None of these states have since voted for Dems, even though before 2000, they quite often did (and, except for the elections of 1972 & 1984, WV had been reliably Dem before the 2000 election). Michigan, California, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Maine all voted for GHWBush in 1988 (in fact, this would be the last year that any of these states would vote for a GOP candidate, even though most of them had quite often (though not always) voted for GOP candidates from 1952 through 1988. Honestly, it’s almost as if the red/blue breakdown is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than anything else.