President Obama Had Best Performance in the South Since Jimmy Carter

[Adam Griffin]

When you take the totals for the following 11 states - the ones that I consider to be part of the actual South regardless of interpretation - you get the following results:

1976 - Carter 53.88%
2008 - Obama 46.37%
1996 - Clinton 46.15%
2012 - Obama 45.09%
1980 - Carter 44.50%
2000 - Gore 43.49%
2004 - Kerry 42.45%
1992 - Clinton 41.16%
1988 - Dukakis 40.87%
1984 - Mondale 37.18%

[Adam Griffin]

When you take the totals for the following 11 states - the ones that I consider to be part of the actual South regardless of interpretation - you get the following results:

1976 - Carter 53.88%
2008 - Obama 46.37%
1996 - Clinton 46.15%
2012 - Obama 45.09%
1980 - Carter 44.50%
2000 - Gore 43.49%
2004 - Kerry 42.45%
1992 - Clinton 41.16%
1988 - Dukakis 40.87%
1984 - Mondale 37.18%

It's obviously more meaningful to compare these percentages relative to the national averages than simply an absolute percentage.

Pretty easy to do.

Points Less D than Nat'l Avg

1992: 1.85
1996: 3.08
1984: 3.38
1988: 4.78
2000: 4.89
2012: 5.67
2004: 5.82
2008: 6.50

Points More D than Nat'l Avg

1980: 3.49
1976: 3.80