The Home State Myth

There's a widespread idea (seen particularly with respect to Al Gore and Tennessee in 2000) that it should be expected that presidential candidates will carry their home states. This is often extended to a premise that adding a VP to the ticket will bring their state into line.

Apparently Bush believes in the home-state myth too, as seen in his recent comment that he thinks he's the only presidential candidate to not carry his state of birth. This is actually a rather suprising comment from Bush, as he typically tries to avoid reminding people that he was born in Connecticut. David Stout of the NYT shoots that idea down.

Frankly, the idea is ridiculous. There's very little evidence to indicate more than a modest boost to a particular candidate in his home state. I suspect some who claim this are basing it off of 1968 and 1984, where Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale won Minnesota, not realizing that this has less to do with home-state appeal than the fact that from 1932 on, Minnesota has only gone Republican in a presidential election three times: 1952 and 1956 (Eisenhower was very popular in MN while Stevenson was seen by many as too much of an "egghead") and 1972 (Nixon 51.6% - McGovern 46.1%, the fourth most-Democratic result in that election).

Crossposted at Blue Minnesota