Why did John Kerry do well in Arkansas

[Averroës Nix]

John Kerry did not do well in Arkansas in 2004. Here are the Democratic margins in presidential contests in Arkansas since Clinton:

2016: -26.9
2012: -23.7
2008: -19.9
2004: -9.8
2000: -5.4
1996: +16.9 (Perot took 7.9)
1992: +17.7 (Perot took 10.4)

The Democratic decline in Arkansas has been steady at the presidential level since the Clinton era. Kerry's performance was several points worse than Gore's had been.

More importantly, the same trend remained notably untrue for downballot contests until Democrats basically fall off of a cliff in 2010.

At the time that Kerry lost the state by nearly 10 points, Democrats controlled both houses of the state legislature by more than 2-1 margins. They held three out of four congressional districts. They held every statewide office except the governor's mansion, including both Senate seats, and Mike Beebe would be elected governor by double-digit margins only two years later.

And they continued to hold all of these offices comfortably for another six years! If not for Huckabee's tenure as governor, Republicans would have been completely locked out of power until 2010. Until then, the party was as marginal in Arkansas as they are California or New York today.