Genuinely , every effort that all of you make contributes to the game that thousands of us play everyday for hours on end . Sure management has changed over the years but I genuinely believe that you new crew are taking this game into a direction that the original creators couldn ' t even have imagined . You ' ve taken their ideas and built on them to make them what it is today , and for that , though we have criticism , we can only be thankful . <| sep |> The rust belt didn ' t just flip suddenly , it was heading red anyway , it started to flip in 2000 in 2000 Gore won Wisconsin by just over 0 . 2 %, and Minnesota by just over 0 . 4 %, in 2004 Kerry won Wisconsin by just under 0 . 4 , but it feels sudden because the solid wins of Obama and Bill masked the closeness of these states . It seems though I may be wrong about this that the rust belt votes for candidates more then Ideology . And I would argue that the Sun Belt flipped much quicker then the rust belt Look at Virginia and NC in 2008 for an example , Virginia went from a 8 % margin for Bush in 2004 to a 6 % margin for Obama in 2008 , a 14 point swing in a single election cycle , not gradual at all like the rust belt was . Or NC , which voted for Bush by a 7 % margin in 2004 to a just under 0 . 4 margin , a 7 point swing , again not gradual at all .