In 2008, race had to have been a factor.
North Dakota and South Dakota both swung heavily toward Obama in 2008 despite being religious and socially conservative.
Certainly social issues could have hurt, but it seems absurd to say race wasn't big there. Same with Arkansas, TN, KY, LA, etc. in 2008
Agreed.
Just refer to Hillary Clinton and how she would have performed in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia—all carried in both 1992 and 1996 by her husband—had she been the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee.
Clinton would have won the popular vote by more than that near-53 percent for President Obama. He received 49% of men and 56% of women. Bump the men up to 52% and the women to 59% and she would would have won about 56 percent of the U.S. Popular Vote. Degrees of shifts (2004/2008) may have been not as high (like a ceiling) with all the Blue Firewall from Obama (numerous he carried about 10 points above the national number). So, to have a 13-point national margin of victory, that would have meant a near-16-point shift (2004/2008). That would have delivered for Hillary Clinton at least Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and West Virginia. Kentucky and/or Tennessee might have also flipped for Hillary.
This could have been the case for Hillary Clinton, as those in Appalachia would have been more even favorable to her than North Dakota and South Dakota. Along with Nebraska and Kansas, the four voted the same as Indiana (an Obama/Democratic pickup in 2008) from 1920 to 2004. (They resumed their five-state agreement in 2012.)
What happened to Obama in Appalachia … is they rejected him well before the general election. And racism was very much key to explaining why they did that in a presidential year where the incumbent Republican party lost the White House (thanks to George W. Bush) and the Democratic party had a national shift of nearly 10 percentage points as Ark., La., Tenn., and W.Va. were four of five states which shifted in the opposite direction of the 45 other states (plus District of Columbia) with that election cycle.
