Yeah. Its hard to imagine a Kerry state to be up for grabs. That election, though could have been worse, was a disaster for the Democrats....and Wisconsin last swung in 1984, when only Minnesota voted for Mondale..and before that, it voted for Reagan twice, but so did 43 other states. Its hard to see Wisconsin finally going Republican, but Indiana went Democratic in 2008, so I guess anything is possible in these sort of purplish-bland states.
Really, though. I just think that Midwestern states are really just like America as a whole. They're not quite North, They're not quite south- they just vote based on the urban/rural divide, not because they have a unique political culture....or so it seems. Wisconsin has a similar amount of people that Indiana but maybe they are distributed differently? The Indianapolis looks small compared to Milwaukee, for example..but Indianapolis population is twice the size...maybe there's a lot more small towns in Indiana and denser urban centers in Wisconsin?
The biggest political difference between Wisconsin and Indiana is that in Indiana the rural areas vote very, very Republican overall but in Wisconsin many of the rural areas are pretty swingy. The Milwaukee metro area generally helps Republicans in the net vote category once you factor in the super-Republican suburbs. It probably doesn't come out that different vote-wise than Indianapolis even though they are very different cities. The same with Madison and Gary. But the rural areas are quite different.
