Gains in blood red Utah

The glowing county below is Salt Lake City County in the 2004 election, which Bush won 60-38, with a margin of about 85,000 votes.

This year?

Updated vote tallies show that President-elect Barack Obama beat Republican John McCain in Salt Lake County by 296 votes, less than one-tenth of a percent.

The result came Tuesday after more than 29,000 provisional and late-arriving absentee ballots were counted as part of the county's official election canvass.

Obama had trailed McCain by about 1,900 votes before the provisional and absentee ballots were counted.

Democrats are hailing it as a big win in this red state. It had been decades since a Democrat claimed Salt Lake County in a presidential election. President Bush won the county by more than 20 percentage points in the last two elections.

University of Utah political science professor Tim Chambless explained, "What we are seeing is the rise in the Democratic Party, therefore the return of Utah to be a two-party state and therefore more political competition."

Congratulations, Salt Lake denizens. This is exciting.

AP hasn't updated the statewide numbers yet (so I can't put up a cool embedded map with the freshest numbers), but the GOPs 72-26 victory in 2004 was reduced to a 63-34 win in 2008 -- a 17-point swing. Still a lot of work to go, but more evidence of the Democratic resurgence in the West that has turned New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado Blue, with Montana just a hair away from joining the club. (An Arizona without McCain on the ballot will also come along for the ride.)

Another accomplishment for Utah: In 2004, they were the Reddest state: (Go ahead and mouseover the states, you'll see the margins.)

In 2008, Idaho ceded that dubious distinction to Oklahoma:

In case you're curious, Hawaii was the most Democratic state this year, followed by Vermont. Kerry's home state of Massachusetts was the most Democratic of 2004.