ND 1980 has the highest trend outside of states not gaining or losing a home state candidate. Also, it's the only state (aside from home state candidates) to appear on this list twice in subsequent elections. Any explanation?
ND has always been the most volatile state in the country due to its extreme isolationism and vulnerability to agricultural influences.
Even in 2008, Obama gained greatly from hostility towards Bush’s war policies, whilst Reagan, Bush junior, and Trump all made large gains due to Democratic environmental policies (and perhaps immigration policies too).
Some of these are probably a little counter-intuitive; e.g. how did MS swing 83.8 points to the Democrats in 1968 when Wallace won the state? The answer is that, purely compared to the Democratic Party, the Republicans went from winning by 74 points (an 87R-13D win) in 1964 to losing by ten points (Wallace won 63.5% of the vote, followed by Humphrey with 23% and Nixon with 13.5%) in 1968.
If we exclude elections dominated by third party candidates – where one often does best by combining with one of the other major party – then these large trends all fall into three groups:
- swings against Bryan in the West due to evaporation of the free silver issue before the 1900 election
- swings against Hoover in Outer South due to the Great Depression and elimination of the anti-Catholicism that helped him carry TX, FL, NC, VA, TN and OK in 1928, and nearly carry AL
- swings to Carter in 1976 as a southern favorite son after the South overwhelmingly rejected McGovern (in the Deep South, Nixon actually won more of the black vote than McGovern did of the white vote)
