Question: The voters of the US state having the most successful American Idol contestant from this season have leaned republican since what year?

Despite being eliminated earlier in the season, Chris Daughtry (as lead of the band Daughtry) became the most successful recording artist from this season. Other contestants, such as Hicks, McPhee, Bucky Covington, Mandisa, Kellie Pickler, and Elliott Yamin have had varying levels of success. <SEP> North Carolina's party loyalties have undergone a series of important shifts in the last few years: While the 2010 midterms saw Tar Heel voters elect a bicameral Republican majority legislature for the first time in over a century, North Carolina has also become a Southern swing state in presidential races. In the 1990s, Democrat Bill Clinton came within a point of winning the state in 1992 and also only narrowly lost the state in 1996. In the early 2000s, Republican George W. Bush easily won the state by over 12 points, but by 2008, demographic shifts, population growth, and increased liberalization in heavily populated areas such as the Research Triangle, Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, and Asheville, propelled Barack Obama to victory in North Carolina, the first Democrat to win the state since 1976. In 2012, North Carolina was again considered a competitive swing state, with the Democrats even holding their 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. However, Republican Mitt Romney ultimately eked out a 2-point win in North Carolina, the only 2012 swing state that Obama lost, and one of only two states (along with Indiana) to flip from Obama in 2008 to the GOP in 2012. Since Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter's comfortable victory in the state in 1976, the state had consistently leaned Republican in presidential elections until Democrat Barack Obama narrowly won the state in 2008. <SEP> ohio was won by donald trump by a margin of 8.1 points. prior to the election, most news organizations considered the buckeye state as leaning republican, due to his appeal to blue collar voters in the rust belt. ohio kept its streak of voting for the winner (a bellwether state) since 1964, as it voted for trump, who won nationally. having voted democratic in 2012 and 2008, the win margin was the second largest of the states trump flipped red (after iowa). it is also the largest victory margin since george h.w. bush defeated michael dukakis in 1988. ohio was an unprecedented 10 points more republican - leaning than the nation in 2016. <SEP> A large number of other notable finalists during the series' run have also hailed from the American South, including Clay Aiken, Kellie Pickler, and Chris Daughtry, who are all from North Carolina. Since the show's inception in 2002, ten of the fourteen Idol winners, including its first five, have come from the Southern United States. In 2012, an analysis of the 131 contestants who have appeared in the finals of all seasons of the show up to that point found that 48% have some connection to the Southern United States. <SEP> in what was to become a tradition, clarkson performed the coronation song during the finale, and released the song immediately after the season ended. the single, "a moment like this", went on to break a 38-year-old record held by the beatles for the biggest leap to number one on the billboard hot 100. guarini did not release any song immediately after the show and remains the only runner-up not to do so. both clarkson and guarini made a musical film, from justin to kelly, which was released in 2003 but was widely panned. clarkson has since become the most successful idol contestant internationally, with worldwide album sales of more than 23 million.