I noticed that Dutchess County,NY voted for Bush twice and then it went to Obama twice. This is the Hudson Valley and the Suburbs of NYC. I thought that was a surprising development given its support of Bush in 2000 and 04.
I wonder what caused that given that 2012 Swung Romney but still lost.
My best guess on Dutchess would be a demographic shift combined with just the general shift leftward in Presidential Elections among cities/suburbs since 2008.
A quick wiki search shows roughly 10% African American and 6% Latino. I imagine that's grown a bit since the 2000 census, but I think it's just the tremendous racial shift in general in terms of who one votes for.
George W. Bush did quite well with Latinos in 2004, winning about 44% of them nationally. Not sure about 2000 but I imagine it was still in the high 30s, low 40s range. I believe Bush broke double digits among black voters as well.
So, you have almost a 20% minority population in the county, going lockstep Democrat -- and this time had a lower turnout of white voters in New York-recipe for defeat for the GOP there
