Why was Alabama relatively close?

[AGA]

In 2000, Bush won Alabama by 14.88 points. Now, that's quite a substantial margin, but not as substantial as Republican margins of victory in 2004 (25.62) and 2008 (21.58). Why did he do so much better than Democrats in other presidential elections? Was it because he was from the neighboring state of Tennessee or just that Alabama wasn't that Republican back then?

[SWE]

That was an improvement over Republicans' performance in the state in the previous two elections.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Alabama was close in 2000 because Gore (see https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=97330.0 1988 Dem primary) was the perfect candidate to keep the Zell Miller type Democrats in line. There were three Mondale counties in northern Alabama. Gore was the last Dem candidate to win even one of them (he won all three). Those Mondale counties in northern Alabama also had some of the highest concentrations of Obama-Trump (and Hillary 08-Trump) voters in AL.

[Intell]

There was a very strong white working class democratic vote in Northen Alabama, many cases a majority of the WWC voted for democrats and that continued to Gore.

# of Northern WWC AL Counties that voted democratic

1984- 3
1988- 5
1992- 11
1996- 10
2000- 3
2004- 0
2008- 0
2012- 0
2006- 0

The vote of the WWC, was actually depressed, and more republican than usual, but that was made up from somewhere, increased black vote?.

This WWC democratic vote, was strong until 08, and had remnants of it until 2016.

[TonyP63]

Al Gore was from Tennesee so idk