Hawaii/Alaska

[minionofmidas]

Alaska and Hawaii were close in the 1960s because during the long colonial territorial era, national issues and the positions of the national parties had played only a small role in state politics and in people's party choices, and it took some time for the old traditions to disappear (one thing that happened in Hawai'i in the 60s is that the state's White population went from voting Republican as a bloc to voting over-average Democratic - and as a result, Honolulu county went from being the most Democratic to being the most Republican county in the state.)

[minionofmidas]

Honolulu County is much more strongly Asian than the outer counties, where both the White and the Native Hawaiian populations are larger, percentage-wise. Thence a realignment of the Whites makes Honolulu County into a comparatively more Republican county - all the others trended more much heavily Dem.

[minionofmidas]

Exactly! From the 2000 borough map of Alaska, way out in the western part of the state, Bush won all the boroughs out there, and they have high native populations. The only reason he won those was because of Ralph Nader.

Minor correction: That's a State House District map. There are no exact figures for boroughs (and now there aren't for State House Districts either). I did some sums etc a while back actually and concluded that Gore did win Bethel Census Area and that it was impossible to ascertain who won Wade Hampton Census Area (since postal votes were only allocated by House District.) It  was also impossible to be make 100% sure that Bush won the gigantic, near-unpopulated Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, although I'm personally sure he did.
Oh, and their Native populations are high indeed:
North Slope Borough 68%
Dillingham CA 70%
Yukon-Koyukuk CA 71%
Nome CA 75%
Bethel CA 82%
Northwest Arctic Borough 83%
Wade Hampton CA 93%

[minionofmidas]

Nobody quite knows.