succeeding years, such as Larry Sabato, have criticized Nixon's fifty-state pledge as a factor in his loss, suggesting that it forced him to place less emphasis on close states. Eight years later, in 1968, Nixon ran for president again and won a three-way race against Democrat Hubert Humphrey and independent candidate George Wallace. His achievement of visiting every state in his previous campaign made Nixon the first president ever to accomplish this task, though not during a winning campaign. Mixed results Howard Dean pursued an explicit "fifty-state strategy" as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, putting resources into building a Democratic Party presence even where Democrats had been thought unlikely to win federal positions, in hopes that getting Democrats elected to local and state positions, and increasing awareness of Democrats in previously conceded areas, would result in growing successes in future elections. Democrats who supported the strategy have said that abandoning "red states" as lost causes only allowed the Republican Party to grow even stronger in areas where it was unchallenged, resulting in lopsided losses for Democrats in even more races. During the 2008 United States presidential election, Barack Obama attempted a form of the fifty-state strategy to reach into deep red states to try to flip them. This was largely based on Obama's appeal during the primaries in very Republican states, like those in the Deep South and the Great Plains. In September, Obama scaled back his fifty-state strategy, abandoning Alaska and North Dakota and reducing staff in Georgia and Montana. John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate made winning Alaska very unlikely for Obama, and she also had strong support in North Dakota. Obama was ultimately able to win Virginia and Indiana, two states that had not voted Democratic since 1964, and North Carolina, last won by a Democrat in 1976. Virginia has since become a reliably Democratic state. Additionally, the margins of victory in North Dakota, Georgia, and Montana were considerably closer than they had been in 2004. See also Electoral College (United States) Red states and blue states References United States presidential elections terminology