Those states also have "vast reserves of oil, natural gas, and coal, access to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans (there is no such thing as the "Caribbean" ocean.)
Remedy this analysis by carefully examining the red-blue map as you do further on. However, you're also somewhat mistaken on that point as well: The blue cancer doesn't just exist in Chicago, but runs a significant length down the Mississippi river. St. Louis is every bit as awful as Chicago, just for example.
It's urban vs. non-urban that matters.
I suppose I should clarify my statement, when I say middle America, on the West Coast I’m talking about the Intermountain Rocky west right up to the coast excluding L.A, and San Frwncisco. On the east coast I an including all of Appalachia and that includes everything up to the coastal areas. The New England I’m talking about is the coast along the Northeast Corridor to the ocean which is just one big sprawling metropolis. I’m talking about the major cities along the coast not the entire states As far as Illinois goes, I don’t think anyone in Ruhl Illinois gives a shit about crooked Chicago. It’s the major metropolitan areas against everybody else, state borders in modern America are not nearly as significant as they were no the Civil War era and will not really matter all that much in the ideological conflict that is looming.