The electoral map makes Mondale's loss worse than it really was. He lost 49 states but in many of those he was at least competitive. He even did respectably in states like West Virginia and Tennessee.
In many landslide elections, the loser dominates in one region or one state but is blown out of the water everywhere else, like Goldwater. 1984 was different because Mondale did well in a lot of states, just not well enough to Beat Reagan in any of them.
A Democrat doing well in West Virginia wasn't unusual then, and Reagan did as well then as McCain would later when the state had gone much more Republican (though in a
much worse year for Republicans). While Goldwater was somewhat competitive in much of the West and Plains and was left far behind in the Northeast, with Mondale it was the reverse.
