....the states that could be considered very democratic at any point in the past 20 years (CA, HI, IL, MN, MD, DE, NJ, NY, CT, RI, MA, VT), really don't seem to be trending very far away from the Dems. I think this whole thing (heavily dem states going to solid GOP) has already happened in the South.
West Virginia could certainly be considered to have been very Democratic until some stage of the 2000 Presidential Election campain (possibly early in the year or even in 1999, but back then Gore was far down everywhere and people were likely expecting him to win West Virginia comfortably in the end unless he got badly defeated nationally), and it has at least trended far away from the Dems if not become a solid GOP state in Presidential elections (2008 will provide some clues as to that). California has never gone Democratic by equal to or greater than the 14.75% margin Clinton carried West Virginia in 1996 since 1964 (although I believe every other state you mentioned has in 1990s, so if you didn't include California in your list you could get away in my book with not including West Virginia). Iowa's trend away from the Democrats since 1996 is also of note, especially considering it went for Dukakis in 1988, but it's largest margin of victory for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964 is its -10.34% margin for Clinton in 1996, so it doesn't qualify for the above group.
Good points though, TACB/HockeyDude. I just thought I'd mention a possible exception to what you claimed in that statement.
