but 13 in a Republican year? Seems like a lot.
I think you underestimate how badly the crisis affected Midwesterners in the 1980s, and how much the Reagan administration was viewed as to blame for it.
Finally, somebody said it. The farm and steel belts were hurt by Reagan. By 1984, the Iron Range in MN was reeling from cheap foreign imports and they voted handily for Mondale. By 1988 the farm crisis had really taken shape, which explains why Dukakis did so well in Iowa, western Minnesota, and western Wisconsin.
