Why is/was President Obama so amazingly popular in Vermont?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, it's a pretty long-term trend in Vermont, which is continuously trending democrat since 1988 (with the exception of 2000, but it was probably due to Nader).

[Antonio the Sixth]

This shows how Democratic relative to the national average Vermont was in Presidential elections since 1988:

1988: D+2
1992: D+3
1996: D+4
2000: D+2 (due to Nader)
2004: D+11
2008: D+15

Keep in mind that Obama won a greater nationwide % of the vote than Kerry did, and thus it is expected that he would do better percentagewise in Vermont. Vermont did trend a little Democratic between 2004 and 2008, though. In 2004, Vermont was 11% more Democratic than the national average, while in 2008, Vermont was 15% more Democratic than the national average.

Thank you for the explanation, but why Vermont has trended so strong since 1988?

To put it quickly, it's all about the GOP's change. Until the 1970's the Republicans were pretty different than how they are now. The "conservative revolution" of the 1980's and the 1990's basically disgusted Vermonters, who are generally rural/small town moderates. The religious conservatism and/or the radcal anti-welfare stances of most republicans were absolutely unappealing to them, wereas the democrats were seen as more moderates and less ideological (and were also remembered as the party of civil right, something who mattered in the North). Obviously, such trend happened gradually, as Vermonter used to vote strongly for republicans (as a reaction against pro-South democrats). so, it took more than 20 year for this move to be fully achieved.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I still think it was social issues that swung VT to the Dems since 1992.

The main point is there : Vermont isn't a Dem State since 1992, but instead since 1980, when Reagan barely won the State while sweeping the country. Since then, Democrats have always done better there than nationwide. If its clear that the trend intensified in the 1990s, 1992 ceartainly isn't the tipping point.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Uh, yeah, Reagan won Vermont by a larger margin than he won many Southern states, so your argument pretty much fails.

How the fact that Southern States were closer than Vermont has anything to do with my point exactly

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1. They certainly weren't going to vote massively for Carter, but certainly a fair share of them would have.
2. If you notice, Anderson's voting patterns are quite similar to those of the democrats today, so the fact he was so strong in VT is also a kind of hint of it becoming a democratic State.

[Antonio the Sixth]

1. They certainly weren't going to vote massively for Carter, but certainly a fair share of them would have.
2. If you notice, Anderson's voting patterns are quite similar to those of the democrats today, so the fact he was so strong in VT is also a kind of hint of it becoming a democratic State.

I'm assuming Anderson's votes would have split evenly between Reagan and Carter, in which case Reagan would still have won by a 6 point margin, which is pretty good (considering the South was closer)

That seems pretty reasonable indeed. Still, Reagan won by 10 points nationwide so that makes Vermont D+4. This was the second time (after 1964) that VT was more democratic than the country, and since this time it has always been so.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Antonio's claims fail on so many levels. You seriously didn't get how the Southern states' results totally undermined your "Vermont is Democratic since 1980 because Reagan barely won the State while sweeping the country" argument?

No, I still fail to see how Vermont is anyhow related with the South and how you can use that to deduce that my argument is "undermined". However, I'm not surprised you claim that.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Probably "barely" wasn't the right word, but my point remains.

Everybody can make any conjecture on what the results have been if Anderson hadn't run. It would be stupid to think Reagan would have won 59/38, and equally stupid to think it would have been a 53/44 Carter win. Besides that, almost everything is possible.

Now the point is that he ran, that the election ended up the way it ended up, and that Reagan's margin of victory was 6 against 10 for the country overall. Draw the conclusion you want to draw, but whether you like it or not, Vermont was a democratic State in 1980 relatively speaking. This is math.

[Antonio the Sixth]

In no Northeastern state did Carter 1980 outperform or even match his 1976 performance.

Indeed, how comes Vermont was the only State swinging to Carter in 1980 despite Anderson got similar scores in several other State ?

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That's actually quite likely considering he would need to get only a third of Anderson voters. I don't know why you are so obstinated in considering that 100% of Anderson voters would have backed Reagan, but that's pretty ridiculous.
 

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The one who is unable to understand the difference between a trend and a relative margin, the one who (voluntarily or not) misinterprets my reasoning, is you.

Ok, by your logic, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida were Republican in 2008, relatively speaking?

Of course they were. You disagree ?