Dukakis did well in Montana

[King of Kensington]

46% of the vote, the second-best popular vote for a Democrat since 1964 (and just behind Obama's 2008 showing of 47%).  Why?

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

It has a tendency to swing against the incumbent party, but if that doesn't fully explain it, maybe the farm crisis extended there.

[Liminal Trans Girl]

It has a tendency to swing against the incumbent party, but if that doesn't fully explain it, maybe the farm crisis extended there.

Very likely that. Dukakis also did very well in Iowa and nearly won neighboring South Dakota

[Fancyarcher]

It has a tendency to swing against the incumbent party, but if that doesn't fully explain it, maybe the farm crisis extended there.

Very likely that. Dukakis also did very well in Iowa and nearly won neighboring South Dakota

He also did better in Oklahoma than Bill Clinton, and Kansas only voted two points to the right of the popular vote. 

If Dukakis had somehow won, his map would have looked very, very strange in a modern context.

[wnwnwn]

A mix of mostly effects of Farm Crisis and some New Deal era residuals agaisnt Reaganeconomics.

[Blow by blow, the passion dies]

Farm crisis, period

[MT Treasurer]

George H. W. Bush was also a particularly poor fit for the region — not a Western outsider like Reagan, rather a MA-born Washington technocrat and former CIA director who emphasized local control far less/employed anti-Big-government rhetoric more sparingly than Reagan and always "felt" closer to D.C. than the West.

[Sumner 1868]

Besides the aforementioned factors of the farm crisis, Reagan overperformance and Bush's lack of appeal, it should be noted the Willie Horton suburban crime race-baiting didn't work in the interior West for obvious reasons.