Reply #22: I don't think either one has all that much chance to take Montana actually.

[FlyingSquirrel]

It's the reddest-leaning of the red-leaners, followed closely by GA. Still, they both voted for Clinton in '92 so I wouldn't count them out completely.

I don't see why we can't hold all the blue states - none of them went red any time since 1988 and things have gotten so bad in the last 7 years I can't imagine why they would. So I don't really get the question of "which blue states can either one hold and why".

But if you want to go down that road, the blue states that were closest in 2000 and 2004 were:

Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Oregon, Wisconsin

Obama wasn't on the ballot in Michigan. PA and OR haven't voted. Obama won both Minnesota and Wisconsin by large margins.

The best chance we might have to flip a red state would be Virginia. Obama won that 54 delegates to 29.

As stated before, Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico were essentially tied between the two candidates. These are blue-leaning swing states.

As also stated before, Edwards took a lot of support from Obama in Florida - this could have been a near-tie as well without Edwards in the mix. Colorado's the next best chance among red-leaning swing states and Obama won, 32 delegates to 13.

Among the remaining swing states, they're pretty much all possible except maybe Kentucky. As stated above once again, Clinton has the advantage in Tennessee and that's pretty much it.