How the residents of each state view Obama continues to be strongly related to 2008 voting patterns. Approval toward him was particularly high in the states that gave him the most support in the 2008 election -- led by Hawaii and Washington, D.C. His lowest support as president came from states that voted strongly for John McCain -- particularly Wyoming and a number of other Western as well as Southern states.
But Obama approval does not translate into electoral success. The home state of Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts) ranked sixth (with DC counting as number one).
West Virginia is the only state where Obama approval lags behind Democratic identification. The state thus continues its journey into the solid-R column in presidential politics. Before 2000, it was solid-D, going Republican only in landslide years. In that year, Karl Rove saw that cultural and environmental issues were pushing it away from the Democrats, so he poured resources into what seemed a quixotic effort to win its electoral votes. Had he not done so, Gore would have won.
