From border state to the epitome of Northeastern politics.
MARYLAND was a swing state for much of the 20th century, but it's been part of the Democratic base since 1960, when Kennedy appealed to the state's large Catholic population and turnout first hit 1 million. Outside of 1972 (when Marylander Spiro Agnew was vice-president), the state has since been signficantly more Democratic than the US as a whole. In 2000, this was one of the few states where Gore ran ahead of Clinton's 1996 showing (up 2.4 points to 56.6%). In 2008, Obama got a record margin of 669,605 votes, and his 61.9% was the best showing by any candidate since Johnson in 1964. The state's large black population, and the large contingent of public-sector workers in the Washington suburbs, should keep it in the Democratic column for many years to come.
See all of the charts so far on Pinterest and an explanation of the project here.
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