Reagan being a Westerner must have something to do with it.
And yet Mondale literally did better than Carter in California....just sayin'.
The home state advantage typically wears off for reelection. Eisenhower did worse in Kansas in 1956 than in 1952 and Clinton did worse in Arkansas in 1996 than in 1992. FDR avoided this two out of his three reelections (New York swung Republican in 1940) as did Nixon and Bush Jr., but it happens. Obama also did worse in Illinois in 2012, but that was to be expected since he did worse than he did in 2008 overall.
