(cross-posted on DailyKos)

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….

Here are my sources for the 2000 and 2004 data.  I’ve listed the percent of the vote Bush got in every single state (and D.C.) in 2000 and 2004, and the percent change going from 2000 to 2004 it represented.

                   2000 %   2004 %  %Change

Alabama             56.5     62.5     +6.0

Alaska              58.6     61.1     +2.5

Arizona             51.0     54.9     +3.9

Arkansas            51.3     54.3     +3.0

California          41.7     44.4     +2.7

Colorado            50.8     51.7     +0.9

Connecticut         38.4     43.9     +5.5

Delaware            41.9     45.8     +3.9

D.C.                 9.0      9.3     +0.3

Florida             48.8     52.1     +3.3

Georgia             54.7     58.0     +3.3

Hawaii              37.5     45.3     +7.8

Idaho               67.2     68.4     +1.2

Illinois            42.6     44.5     +1.9

Indiana             56.6     59.9     +3.3

Iowa                48.2     49.9     +1.7

Kansas              58.0     62.0     +4.0

Kentucky            56.5     59.6     +3.1

Louisiana           52.6     56.7     +4.1

Maine               44.0     44.6     +0.6

Maryland            40.2     42.9     +2.7

Massachusetts       32.5     36.8     +4.3

Michigan            46.1     47.8     +1.7

Minnesota           45.5     47.6     +2.1

Mississippi         57.6     59.4     +1.8

Missouri            50.4     53.3     +2.9

Montana             58.4     59.1     +0.7

Nebraska            62.2     65.9     +3.7

Nevada              49.5     50.5     +1.0

New Hampshire       48.1     48.9     +0.8

New Jersey          40.3     46.2     +5.9

New Mexico          47.8     49.8     +2.0

New York            35.2     40.1     +4.9

North Carolina      56.0     56.0     +0.0

North Dakota        60.7     62.9     +2.2

Ohio                50.0     50.8     +0.8

Oklahoma            60.3     65.6     +5.3

Oregon              46.5     47.2     +0.7

Pennsylvania        46.4     48.4     +2.0

Rhode Island        31.9     38.7     +6.8

South Carolina      56.8     58.0     +1.2

South Dakota        60.3     59.9     -0.4

Tennessee           51.1     56.8     +5.7

Texas               59.3     61.1     +1.8

Utah                66.8     71.5     +4.7

Vermont             40.7     38.8     -1.9

Virginia            52.5     53.7     +1.2

Washington          44.6     45.6     +1.0

West Virginia       51.9     56.1     +4.2

Wisconsin           47.6     49.3     +1.7

Wyoming             67.8     68.9     +1.1

Huzzah to Vermont and South Dakota for breaking the national trend.

While Gore received 43.2% of the vote in 2000 in North Carolina, Kerry got 43.6%.  Yeah, it’s not much of an increase, but considering that Bush improved in almost every other state in the country, it speaks volumes that North Carolina didn’t go the same way.

Think about this, folks.  In 48 states and D.C., Bush did better in 2004 than he did in 2000.  Think about that.  The ONLY states where that did not occur were South Dakota, Vermont, and North Carolina.  I’d have to say that that was because of John Edwards.  Notice that in Tennessee, without native Al Gore, their percent of the Bush vote jumped up from 51.1% to 56.8%.

And even with native John Kerry, Massachusetts gave Bush 36.8% of the vote in 2004, when they only gave him 32.5% in 2000.  How the hell could Bush improve by 4.3% in Kerry’s home state??  Given that, did you seriously expect John Edwards, as the Vice Presidential nominee, to FLIP North Carolina for the Democrats??  And look here in California: we gave Bush 41.7% of the vote in 2000, but gave him 44.4% of the vote in 2004, even as we re-elected Barbara Boxer in record numbers.  How did this happen?

When you see the chart like this, it’s amazing to think we picked off ANY state that went for Bush in 2000.  And the only one was New Hampshire.  Gore only got 46.8% of the vote there to Bush’s 48.1%, but Ralph Nader pulled in 3.9% of the vote.  In 2004, Kerry squeaked by with 50.2% of the vote.  But still, Bush got 48.9% of the vote that time around.  In Iowa, both parties did better in 2004 than they did in 2000 percentage-wise, but Bush still flipped that state red.

If you were wondering, I was over at MyDD, and read this comment, which spurred me to pull up the figures and crunch the numbers for this diary.