The whole Upper Mississippi has a pretty strong Dem advantage. See similar results in SW Wisconsin and NW Illinois. Western Iowa, of course, remains a strongly GOP region.
Any particular reason for this? I can see why the Democrats do well in rural New England as it is a pretty liberal area throughout and I believe has very few evangelical Christians (If you exclude this group, Obama got almost 60%), whereas the percentage of white evangelicals is pretty close to the national average in this area. The other area is the rural West Coast counties in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington where you have a strong environmental movement and alternative lifestyle attitude. But I cannot see any particular reason in this area. Not that I would expect it to go massively Republican as it is not in the Deep South, Plains, or Mountain West which are the only areas the GOP routinely get over 70% in rural counties, but I thought I would be similiar to rural Upstate New York or rural Michigan in terms of voting patterns.
