Maryland is more urban and has a larger minority population although Delaware is large too. Never mind if you compare to 2004, Obama still did much better than Kerry in both Delaware and Illinois. The 2008 results were anomalies so I think you saw a return to more normal results albeit on the high side for the Democrats in both states. I think a better question to ask is why the GOP did as bad as it did in Massachusetts (Romney's home state), Michigan (Romney's birth state), and Wisconsin (Ryan's home state). In both Michigan and Wisconsin, Obama did better than both Gore and Kerry despite the fact the GOP ticket in those two had no connection to either state.
Massachusetts is more curious, because Romney does have the right profile for that state as a Boston venture capitalist. His problems here were similar to Gore in TN. As connected as both were to their states, they had strayed fundamentally too far from the dominant local values.
In short, this election has basically told us that it is utterly impossible for pro-life, anti-gay marriage candidates to compete in New England.
Well I think 2012 Romney NH was more comparable to Gore 2000 TN since both states were pretty close to the close to the National Popular Vote totals.
Massachusetts was just way too Dem for Romney to win at the Presidential Level to win in this partisan environment. Reagan did take the state both times in his election victories(just barely in 1980(41.9-Carter's 41.
and by 3% points in 1984.) John Anderson(I) took 15% of the vote in Massachusetts in 1980 which I never knew about, I was shocked when I found that out 10 minutes ago. Massachusetts voted at a PVI of D+8 in 1984.
