Why was Rhode Island so close?

[hopper]

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, except for Massachusetts.

A Republican Presidential Candidate hasn't carried a county in MA since 1988 with Bush H.W.

[hopper]

Republicans love to stereotype the Northeast as a region filled with Coastal Elitist Latte Liberals,which is false.

Well Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York City have latte liberals. Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Maine, and NOVA are just Center-Left. New Hampshire and Pennsylvania are Purple States.

[hopper]

Trump did much better with poor whites. Also see Maine.

This past Election was about a  little more about Trumps winning margins Non-College Whites vs College Educated Whites rather than just about singularly income.

[hopper]

Been a lurker here for a while. Thought I'd comment (although it's mostly been answered)!
RI has similar demographics to Massachusetts but with more Italians, Catholics (more socially conservative) and fewer wealthy areas (meaning it was more receptive of Trump's economic populism). Extremely Italian mid-size middle/working class towns like Johnston and West Warwick managed to vote for Trump after voting for Obama by huge margins because of this. Then there's the WASP factor (White anglo-saxon protestant, think ME-02 or eastern Connecticut) that voted for Trump in huge margins, that you don't see too much in Massachusetts but is common in western and southern Rhode Island.
These differences are also why RI voted for Bernie in the primary while Mass voted for Hillary.

Comparing RI to MA Italian vs Irish descent according to Wikipedia last demographic demographics(not sure if the demographic breakdowns in the Wikipedia article are from 2010 or 2014.)

MA(% of ancestry group)

Irish: 23% of the Population
Italian: 14% of the Population

RI:(% of ancestry group)

Irish: 19% of the population
Italian 19% of the population