Why didn't Hillary have a big margin in New England?

[Sumner 1868]

Because she was a bad fit for virtually all rural areas.

This much is true. It's interesting to look at the many differences between Gore's defeat and Clinton's defeat, and the extent to which the country changed in just sixteen years. Almost everywhere-and this was certainly true in New England, Gore significantly outperformed Clinton in rural and small-town America, while Clinton ran ahead of him in urban and suburban areas. In Massachusetts for example, Clinton did better than Gore in the liberal, university towns of the far west, Boston, and the suburbs of Middlesex County, while Gore outran her in the rural and working-class areas of Worcester, Hampshire, Plymouth, and Norfolk Counties.

Clinton won New Hampshire (which Gore narrowly lost) by significantly outrunning him in Grafton County, but appears to have done worse than him in blue-collar areas such as those in Coos County. And of course, Clinton did significantly worse than Gore in Maine's 2nd District, and in blue-collar parts of that state generally. Rhode Island had the starkest disparity between their performances; while Gore got 61% there, Clinton only received 54%.

And outside of New England, there were hundreds of counties, in West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, among other states, carried by Gore, that went to Trump by overwhelming margins. Legendary Elliott County, Kentucky, for example, gave Gore 64%, while Clinton got only 26% there. It still astonishes me the extent to which rural areas in New England and elsewhere despised Hillary Clinton-though I fully understand why, and it's particularly interesting given that Gore and Clinton are both part of the same ideological wing of the Party, if you will.

I fully understand why too, and I suspect we fully disagree.

Considering White working class women swung to Trump- sexism wouldn't be the answer. Racial/Cultural Conservatism amongst existing democratic white working class voters would probably be the correct answer to this.

I think a better answer in many cases (especially the Francophone areas) would be simply neutrality on racial issues because it has no impact on their communities. There's a reason why Aroostook County was George Wallace's worst county in 1968.