Interesting, from this perspective the 1984 is an important realigning election, as the ones after are quite similar to the current one, whilst earlier elections have more of an east/west-split :-)
Sort of. 1972 was much closer to the modern pattern, and 1968 is difficult to describe with much certainty (but, since those same areas of the South had gone hard for Goldwater in 1964, it's possible that they would have favored Nixon over HHH given HHH's stronger association with Johnson and Civil Rights). When done, 1964 will of course strongly resemble the modern map.
On the longer view, 1964 is probably more clearly the realigning election than 1984, with 1976 and 1980 explained as a brief renaissance of the Democrats in the South with Carter as the candidate rather than a continuation of past strength. (House, Senate and state legislature results tell a different story, of course, but they tend to be lagging indicators of partisan changes.)
I guess the choice of 1972 or 1976/80 depends on which one is considered the odd one out (and I also guess the period can be seen as a transition period, when candidates were more able to change the geographical distribution more than today). Wonder why California leaned Democrat in 1972 though, considering that Nixon was from the state. Perhaps 1972 was (compared with other elections) more on social values than on economic values?
Mm, in 1964 the Democrats lost the south and in 1960 the Republicans lost the north east.
And back in the 30s and 40s Oklahoma and Utah trended Democrat!
Another fascinating thing is how very static things have become since 2000. Apart from the tipping state, which per definition changes hand if the other party takes over there is just a change of one state per election or so. Looking at the numbers, in the last election 15 states were within 5 % of the national average (looking at the Democrats, though logically it should be something similar for the Republicans). In 1960 that number was 35 states!
