Who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and then Carl Paladino in the 2010 New York gubernatorial race? It seems that these voters were mostly clustered in Western New York, but why would one vote for Obama and then two years later an overtly racist arch-conservative?
Paladino was a local hero in the Buffalo area, which felt very left behind by the state in general and hadn't had a gubernatorial candidate cater to them in years; the extremely negative statewide perception of Paladino therefore felt, to many people in Buffalo (including loyal Democrats) like an attack on the city itself.
Notably, four years later, Erie County was one of the few places to swing left even as the state of NY bolted right. There are people out there who have voted straight-ticket Democratic their whole lives except for Carl Paladino (which is, I admit, a very odd thought). Would be interesting to track one of these people down to ask what the difference is between Paladino and Trump (though the answer would have to boil down to 'Trump isn't a hometown boy').
