States in bold are ones where I truly do not understand how the said result happened, and I would appreciate someone trying to explain.
Arizona: 1996 (randomly voted Democratic despite being solidly Republican before and after)
Arkansas: 1980 (voted Reagan in insane 30 point R swing despite being Carter's 2nd best state in 1976, none of the rest of the South swung by this much!)
California: 1972: (voted 11 points more Dem than the nation as a whole despite being solidly a solidly Republican state and being the home state for Nixon, never able to understand this anomaly)
Hawaii: 1976 (2 points away from voting for Ford despite being a solidly Democrat state, how did this happen?)
Indiana: randomly voted for Obama despite being extremely Republican before and after.
Lousiana: 1996 (voted for Clinton by a huge 12 point margin, far more Democratic than rest of South outside of Arkansas, why?
Maine: 2016 (Huge Swing to Trump, going from solidly D to one that Trump almost won. I don't understand how Trump would be a better fit than past Republicans.)
Massachusettes: 1980 (voted for Reagan despite 6 usually less Democratic states staying loyal to Carter)
Michigan: 2016 (thanks WWC)
Minnesota: 2016 (Trump almost won this solidly Democratic state by dominating among WWC voters)
Mississippi: 1980 (Swung only 3 points more R from 1976 despite far greater swings among the rest of the South. I don't understand why Mississippi stayed so stubborn.)
Montana: 2008 (how did Obama get within 2 points here? I get Clinton 1992 due to Perot, but I don't get this)
Nevada: 2008 (Obama won by 12 points, massively overperforming in what has otherwise been a swing state since 1992)
New Hampshire: 1996 (Clinton won by 10 points in a state than barely voted for him in 1992 and was extremely Republican before that)
New York: 2016 (How did Trump improve over every Republican performance since 1988 upstate?!)
Ohio: 2016 (Trump massively overperformed here)
Oklahoma: 1960 (Massively swung to Nixon, becoming one of his best states, despite being a Democratic-leaning state before this election)
Pennslyvania: 1984 (Much more Democratic compared to the nation than state usually was)
Rhode Island: 1972 (Voted far more Republican than MA although the two states usually vote very similarly.)
South Carolina: 1968 (Only Deep South state not to vote Wallace)
Tennesee: 1988 (Why did Bush improve over Reagan?!)
Texas: 1968 (Only Southern state to vote Democratic, Humphrey did far better in white vote than rest of South, guess they were that loyal to LBJ)
Utah: 2016 (Insane 3rd Party performance by McMullin)
Virginia: 1976 (Only Southern state to resist Carter)
Washington: 1968 (Not sure why state voted for Humphrey, since it was otherwise reliably Republican between 1952 and 1984)
West Virginia: 1972 (How did the state vote MORE Republican than the nation?! It was heavily Dem, heavily union, and didn't have the racial issues the South did at the time.)
Wisconsin: 2016 (thanks WWC)
1. Clinton campaigned to insane amounts to get that result. The bigger question is why Colorado was still lost, or why Nevada was farther right.
2. Nah, The entire South moved a lot towards Reagan, with pretty much the exceptions of Georgia and...Mississippi...why Mississippi barely moved is the better question.
3. Lean R, not solidly so. Carter was a hilariously terrible fit, and Dukakis failed badly enough nationwide to lose what should've been an easy flip. Nixon needed absentee ballots to flip his way in the close ones. The state used the lead D-first, and JFK was declared the winner on that.
4. Hawaii voted to the right of Alaska in 1972, it's pretty obvious that the state wasn't truly Solid D until Reagan...also Carter was a terrible fit.
5. Obama campaign-bombed the state, the better question is why Missouri didn't flip too. I still don't get that one.
6. Okay that one I don't get
7. WWC resentments, if Trump were doing respectably, I suspect he'd flip the state.
8. Anderson ate up the vote, now why the state didn't become a Reagan-Mondale state...that is a stumper.
9. Black turnout seriously dove.
10. 3rd parties...also Al Gore didn't do much better.
11. Not sure with this one
12. Anti-incumbent sentiment and yuge recession, I suspect if it were Pence running for re-election and not Trump, Biden would be far closer
13. NH cemented itself as a swing state by this point, and has generally been close to the pop vote since...why it screwed the country over in 2000 is a better question.
14. Native son performance.
15. The entire Midwest was overly favorable to Trump that year
i'm stopping there.
