What troubles me about New England is the fact that states like Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont have trended hard toward the Democrats since 1988, totally out of proportion to the rest of the country. I understand the region has historically been more liberal, but fail to see why it has become so much more pronounced over the last 20 years.
On the other hand, New England only has 6.3% of all electoral votes, so perhaps the GOP's decline ultimately does not matter there in the grand scheme of things.
The GOP use to have a liberal wing of the party, they don't anymore. The old school Rockefeller Republicans finally had enough, and jumped ship from the party. The anti-intellectualism that some in the GOP seem to take pride in hasn't helped either.
New England might make up 6.3% of the electoral votes, but the problems have spread beyond there. Its from D.C all the way up, and now going further. Northern Virginia use to be strongly GOP, and that has switched just about as much as New England and it has taken the state with it. The same issues have happened in North Carolina as well especially in Mecklenburg County and the Raleigh-Durham areas.
