The national unemployment rate has been improving ever since the seventh month of Barack Obama's presidency, but that improvement hasn't been the same for every state.
I'm a New Jerseyan, and with our Republican Governor we've been doing much worse than the other North East states, especially against ones with Democratic Governors.
So I decided to do a quick look at how other states were doing, and found this very interesting trend (edit) in the 15 states with the worst unemployment rates.
State Rate Governor
Georgia 8.1 Nathan Deal (R)
Mississippi 7.9 Phil Bryant (R)
Rhode Island 7.7 Lincoln Chafee (I)
Nevada 7.6 Brian Sandoval (R)
California 7.4 Jerry Brown (D)
Michigan 7.4 Rick Snyder (R)
Tennessee 7.4 Bill Haslam (R)
Oregon 7.2 John Kitzhaber (D)
Arizona 7.1 Jan Brewer (R)
Kentucky 7.1 Steve Beshear (R)
Alabama 6.9 Robert J. Bentley (R)
Alaska 6.8 Sean Parnell (R)
North Carolina 6.8 Pat McCrory (R)
Illinois 6.7 Pat Quinn (D)
New Mexico 6.7 Susana Martínez (R)
This should give voters significant pause, but it won't. Just like nothing sways them when it's pointed out that the last few balanced federal budgets were all under Democratic Presidents, that incomes and employment and stock markets all do better under Democratic Presidents, that just about every serious recession started under a Republican President.
Sad.