So one refrain I've seen bandied about in the last couple months has been that Edwards is a weak candidate because he couldn't even win his home state of North Carolina in 2004. Now, the primary rebuttal is that it was John Kerry's campaign, not Edwards'. But in looking at the numbers, I discovered something quite interesting.
Did you know that Bush got a higher percentage of the vote in 2004, when compared to 2000, in EVERY southern state... EXCEPT for North Carolina? In fact, Bush improved his percentage of the vote in 47 of our 50 states, and even in D.C. Yes, even in states that Bush lost by wide margins, he improved on his vote percentage in those states. He barely got 35% of the vote in New York in 2000, but got over 40% of the vote there in 2004. Think about that. Hell, Bush even improved in Massachusetts, John Kerry's home state. Think about that.
The full numbers after the fold....
