2000? Ironically, Gore did somewhat better in FL than expected based on Clinton's '96 and Kerry's '04 performance
Yeah, it's interesting that FL was actually in the bottom quartile of states in terms of Republican improvement between Dole and Bush, and was part of the region where Bush improved the least. His improvements were concentrated in both the interior South and the interior West, and he improved the least along the East Coast and the West Coast.
By the average of each the states in each census subregion, Bush improved on Dole by:
West South Central: 12.4%
Mountain: 10.5%
West North Central: 9.7%
East South Central: 9.4%
East North Central: 8.2%
New England: 7.5%
Pacific: 6.4%
Mid-Atlantic: 5.2%
South Atlantic: 5.1%
It's also ironic that Florida hasn't been anywhere close to the deciding state in any election since, and that it went back to being significantly right of the nation.
