Why was Rhode Island so close?

[NOVA Green]

Trump was the first Republican nominee since Ford or H.W Bush who was not a hard line Christian theocrat. This certainly helped in the Upper Midwest, West Coast, Northeast and especially New England, which have been disgusted by GOP social Conservatism.

This is not true.

Most socially liberal, well-educated areas trended Democratic.  Take a look at Massachusetts, the West Coast, the D.C. Metro, and numerous college towns.  Hillary also performed very well in traditionally Republican but socially moderate areas like suburban Chicago.

Trump meanwhile achieved record performance among white Evangelicals (never mind that Trump may not be sincerely religious himself).  He also overperformed among culturally conservative Democrats, which is why he turned so many rural counties Republican.

2016 clearly widened the urban-rural, social liberal-social conservative divide. 

Yes but most people living in the rural/ small city northeast as well as large amounts of the Midwest are not evangelicals. Many social moderates in these areas even if they don't have degrees we're turned off by the GOP's southern flavored evangelism. Many working class whites especially outside of the south are fairly secular (just like a lot of college educated whites in the south and Midwest are very religious)

St Alphonso is on the money here...

Most people living in rural and small town America (Outside of the Deep South and certain parts of the border states) are not evangelicals.

Where I currently live and work in "Deer Hunter" (Reference to the movie, check it out of you haven't yet) country are much more motivated by basic issues such as steady and decent paying employment to help support their family, and religion is pretty much the only item I haven't heard discussed out in the smoking area....

I am still extremely skeptical about this whole argument regarding Trump and Rhode Island (Let alone anywhere else in the country) over-preforming as a result of the evangelical vote.

Last time I checked it was "the economy stupid" and a sense of relative deprivation between rural and Metro America when it came to the economic recovery after the Great Recession.

[NOVA Green]

This one is a mystery to me. Trump even won a county there, which no Republican has been able to do since Reagan.

Trump won a county in every New England state aside of Massachusetts.

Sure--- although honestly the whole concept of discussing Presidential election results in detail by County in New England can become an absurd proposition, since really NE county level discussion is frequently a much less fruitful endeavor than comparing cities/townships across the region (Precinct level results are always tough anywhere you go, especially in NE).

That Trump was appealing to many voters in RI, as in most parts of NE, "swing voter types" that might have voted along the following lines: Dukakis/Bush '88, Clinton/Perot '92, Clinton/Perot '96, Gore/W. '04, Obama '08, Obama/Romney '12....

Let's face it--- really we are talking about swings here, and elections aren't just a giant collection of   W & Ls like a football game.

Just because all of the EVs in NE have gone Dem since '08, with the exception of ME-02 ('16), doesn't mean that there won't be dramatic swings within given states.

Also, I might note that Trump only bagged only 38.7% of the vote in '16, hardly a definition of the provocative thread title: "Why was RI so close?".... Meanwhile Romney managed to capture an amazing 35.2% in '12, W. 35.2% in '04.

The key question should be where did the 3.5% of voters that hadn't voted Republican in '04 and '12 come from? They didn't just materialize from nowhere overnight, as a result of some random Russian election hacking gig unless that's what you choose to believe (rhetorical you---and def not shooting darts at you Bandit for realz).

Odds are these are voters that have generally voted Democratic at a Presidential level in the past, but for whatever reason felt that Trump alone was sufficient to change years of voting for Dem Pres candidates at the Pres level.

Now, the other question is why did HRC perform so poorly in RI (54.4% !), but I suspect we already know the multiple answers to that question.

RI isn't anywhere close to voting 'Pub Pres anytime in the near future, and it really looks like most of the Democratic drop-off were Millennials and WWC Bernie supporters voting to the Left as part of an "Anyone but Trump/Clinton Movement".