Yup, this is the end. Two short sections from near the beginning, and they're the only ones I haven't posted. Thanks for reading, and enjoy!
--The Solid South--
The Solid South originally meant the states of the former Confederacy, which, with scattered exceptions, all voted for the Democrat in Presidential elections after Ulysses Grant left office. Until about the 1940s or 50s (one common demarcation is President Truman's integration of the armed forces by executive order), the Democrats were the party of racism, and the South was controlled at virtually every level after Reconstruction by conservative white racist Democrats.
The Solid South was also more or less a hindrance to Democrats between 1880 and 1960: the presidential nominee could usually count on getting the electoral votes of nearly every state that had seceded from the Union, plus a good chunk of the border, but often could not get votes anywhere else.
After 1976, in which Jimmy Carter of Georgia won every state in the South but Virginia and Oklahoma, plus the aforementioned New England split and most of the more populous states in the Northeast and Rust Belt, no Democrat ever won much of the South. Carter was, as a consequence, the last Democrat to win Texas (though Obama may change that in 2012, if the Hispanic population continues to take a larger and bluer chunk of the voting pie), South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama (which these days Jesus (D) would lose to Bozo the Clown (R) as Presidential candidates, and probably statewide as well). Bill Clinton won West Virginia (about which more later), Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana in 1992 and 1996, but only won Georgia and Florida once each, and never won any other Southern state.
Though West Virginia has trended strongly Republican in the last few Presidential elections, for quite some time it used to vote for the Democrat even if practically nobody else did. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson won it, and he lost it in 1916, in addition to his home state of New Jersey, which voted for him in 1912. That was the last time West Virginia went Democratic until 1932, when it entered a fair streak, interrupted only by Eisenhower's second term, Nixon's second term, and Reagan's second term. From 1932 to 2000, West Virginia voted Republican only those three times. Then Gore, Kerry, and Obama lost it by increasing margins, from 6.3 to 13.1%.
In 2004, George W. Bush won every Southern state, but still managed to have the second most pathetic successful reelection ever, beating John Kerry 286 votes to 251. (One Oregon elector got confused and voted Edwards/Kerry instead of Kerry/Edwards; the 2000 Electoral College also had a vote missing, with 271 votes for Bush and 266 for Gore, though in that case the cause was a D.C. elector casting no vote in protest over D.C. not having a voting representative in the House.)
--2008--
Barack Obama is the second Democrat to win without West Virginia, after Wilson in his second term. He's also the first to win Indiana since Johnson in '64, though Clinton held Bush and Dole to 6%, and the first to win North Carolina since Carter in '76, though Clinton lost to Bush by less than 1% and Dole by 5%.
John McCain is the first Republican to win West Virginia and lose the election since Charles Evans Hughes lost to Woodrow Wilson in 1916; Hughes won most of the Northeast, including Wilson's home state of New Jersey, but he lost Ohio and almost every state west or south of Missouri, which narrowly prevented his victory.
Obama is the second Democrat to be elected without Texas, though he has continued the trend broken only by Clinton in winning North Carolina and the election.
Obama got the largest percentage of votes since Bush Sr. was elected with 53.4% of the vote in 1988, and is the first Democrat to win a majority of the vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, who was himself the first since Roosevelt. However, Bill Clinton got 8.5% more of the vote than Bob Dole in 1996, still exceeding Obama's 7.5% lead over McCain.
Every single county in New England but Piscataquis County, Maine voted for Obama.
