republicans won same states that they won last time in 2004 and so did democrat except NH, NV and most probably IA and NM. they are switched. so what we can say here, people did not vote on the issues like war, economy, job loss ( take case of ohio). i read one article on a newspaper yesterday which says that the main issue that in this election was american values ( gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research and christianity). bush won because kerry supported gay marriage, stem cell research, abortion and bush did not. interesting part is kerry won those states which has more educated and immigrants while bush won inner states. country is divided, no matter what other says, it might increse the differences between the people living in east and west and mid parts of usa. had bush been popular becaue of war, he should be able to win other states which democrats won last time, he could not.