Have you ever been to New Mexico, my neighbor state to the east? No? Let me splain...
Although beautiful, it's very fucked up blue and it's a whole lot of drunken Indians that live in pretty piss poor conditions on gibs. Albuquerque is meth central. Get off I-40 and pull in somewhere to get gas or eats and the crackheads are everywhere, needles laying about. It's not a stereotype that Breaking Bad was filmed there, it's reality.
Go on to Gallup and everytime I've been there, there's a flock of cop cars with lights on doing DUI checks on all the I-40 entrances. Yeah, it's that bad. They have signs all along I-40 with a special phone number to report DUIs.
I-10 across southern New Mexico is pretty similar. There's just really not much there in the way of business, headquarters, or major industry. Heavy reliance on tourism. Think Roswell and artsy Santa Fe. About the biggest thing that comes out of New Mexico is Hatch chili peppers 🌶 and those are delicious. But beyond that? Nada. No surprise unemployment is so high.
States with huge gibs are always blue, except when you see them depicted by other stats where red is the highest.