Map of counties that flipped in 2012

[Benj]

Alaska is inaccurate on that map; there should be a bunch of black Census divisions. Also, you should probably color Salem County, NJ something other than blue; it went from Obama 2008 to an exact tie in 2012.

[Benj]

Romney picked up  a few 2008 Obama counties each in CA and in Oregon too. Ok 2 of the CA counties are in the moderate to conservative areas of CA. The 1 county that Romney picked up is in Mike Thompson's(D) district I think which is in the northwest part of the state.

Romney narrowly flipped back the three remarkable D gains of 2008 that were not in SoCal or the San Joaquin Valley - Nevada, Butte and Trinity.

They do have a somewhat similar profile, though. They all have a bunch of ordinary rural Republicans mixed with a specific type of hyper-liberalism: resort town in Nevada County (Truckee), college town in Butte County (Chico/Chico State) and general north coast hippie-liberalism in Trinity County.

I think there might be Mormons in Nevada County, actually.