Presidential Election -- Maine

Electoral votes: 4

2004 result: Kerry 54%, Bush 45%

2000 result: Gore 49%, Bush 44%

Most recent Republican win (1988): Bush 55%, Dukakis 44%

African American percentage: 0.8% (national average is 12.8%)

Link to polls in Real Clear Politics

Back in ancient history, Maine was so reliably Republican that, when the Democrats achieved their biggest landslide win in a presidential election, measured by electoral votes, Maine still voted Republican. When Franklin Roosevelt was elected to his second term in 1936, his Republican opponent, Kansas Governor Alf Landon, carried only Maine and Vermont.

There was an old saying in American politics: "As Maine goes, so goes the nation." People said that, because Maine used to hold its general elections for state offices and Congress in September. Those early results were scrutinized for clues as to how the other states would vote, two months later.

After that 1936 landslide, Democrats quipped: "As Maine goes, so goes Vermont."

Well, I have not reached Vermont yet, in my alphabetical analysis of the states. But in both of those states, things have changed in the last 72 years. Maine appears headed toward the Obama column.