Which state was the most surprising?

[Cubby]

I didn't understand why of the 3 Dukakis states, 2 went stronger to Kerry and one flipped to Bush. My best guess is the few Nader '00 voters in the first 2 switched to Kerry, while Nader did less well in Iowa '00.

I agree with everyone else that Wisconsin was a surprise. I remember a poll on this site in Sept. or Oct. that had Bush with a 10 point lead.

Bad surprise: Bush doing noticably better in all of the Northeast except north New England. Terrorism/Security close to home was probably why. I had hoped that MA,CT and RI would have every county red like last time. Stupid Litchfield! The continued low turnout among my fellow young voters made me mad and depressed. Losing every single county in Oklahoma: ouch

Good Surprise: Dems doing better across the entire northern tier of the country, even in places like ND & ID (trend-wise, not actual results) And even in the south some good news: We won Fairfax, Mecklenburg (Charlotte, NC) and almost won Dallas!

I voted Wisconsin

[Cubby]

Good Surprise: Dems doing better across the entire northern tier of the country, even in places like ND & ID (trend-wise, not actual results) And even in the south some good news: We won Fairfax, Mecklenburg (Charlotte, NC) and almost won Dallas!

Dallas County is not Dallas.  Only a certain area of Dallas County actually forms the city of Dallas and the city of Dallas is blocked by suburban municipalities on all sides.  About 50% of the population resides in the city of Dallas (1.2 million), the rest are in suburbs (1.2 million).  The Dallas-Fort Worth metro area (key term) is roughly 5.2 million and includes the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth and its various and surrounding suburbs in Dallas County, Tarrant County, Collin County and Denton County.

The Dallas-Fort Worth metro area continues to produce roughly a 60%-40% Republican split in most Texas local and federal elections.  This election was no different.

The population of city of Dallas is stable, not growing or declining.  I would say demographically it's probably 1/3 black, 1/3rd white, 1/3 Hispanic (don't know for sure), but the blacks vote in extremely large numbers greater than the Hispanics, most of whom are not legal citizens.

There is no doubt in my mind that the city of Dallas voted strongly Democrat in 2004, as it has since 1988 at least, but as the City of Dallas only forms roughly only 1/20th of the Texas population and 1/10th of the actual vote, 1/5th of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area and 1/4 of the actual vote and probably roughly 1/2 of Dallas County and its vote, it only affects the Texas totals so much.

Yes I am familiar with the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area (or metroplex as I think they call it) and I know it had no impact on the Texas results as a whole. But since all of Dallas County almost voted Democrat, then even the suburbs such as Plano, Mesquite and Garland must have trended Democrat at least somewhat b/c these are county results, not city. If Dallas's population isn't growing as fast as the suburbs then since the trend was Democrat the change was also in the latter, not just downtown.