West Virginia has always been a heavily unionized and protectionist state. Sam reason why he won such a huge upset in Michigan, despite being behind by as much as 40 percent in some polls.
Gotta agree with Oldies Freak on this one....
Additionally, Bill Clinton barely lifted a finger to protect the Coal Miners and the UMWA during the '93 strike, at a time where the Coal Operators were trying to close down Union Mines and shift operations to Non-Union Mines elsewhere within the region and country.
West Virginia Democratic Primary voters have a long history of supporting candidates of religious minority background (JKF in '60, Bernie in '16) that actually spend some time in the state, and talk about the real bread and butter issues concerning the vast majority of the state.
Bernie talked a common sense language for those of us that were born and raised in rural and small Mill town communities....
Clinton '16 was a very different candidate from Clinton '08.... She spoke the language of suburban Democratic Voters in '16, and neglected the core Democratic values going back to the New Deal era, and instead tried to do a compare and contrast with Bernie, where she went after him on Guns of all things early in the Democratic Party Primary debates, and unlike even Dukakis in '88 I don't remember her once making a pitch for rural and small-town voters during the primaries or General Election....
then how did Bill easily win WV in 96 if he was so hated there.
This guy is way too over it.
With the exception of 10K new voters. Turnout in WV in 96 and 00 was basically the same.
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/compare.php?year=2000&fips=54&f=0&off=0&elect=0&type=statehttp://us.cnn.com/ELECTION/1998/states/WV/polls/WV96PH.htmlGore lost 7% of the moderate vote, 5% of the liberal vote, 5% of the conservative vote compared to Clinton in 96.
Along with those new 10,000 voters of which 65% went to Bush. Pushed Gore from 51% to 45%. (10% of the 96 Clinton vote went to Bush and i know it says 21% but that number is probably inflated because its a poll and people tend to give dubious answers sometimes but at least 10% of the Clinton vote did switch to Bush).
Also gore lost 8% of the evangelical vote compared to Clinton.
http://www.cbsnews.com/campaign2000results/state/poll_wvop-.htmlThree issues put Bush over the top, Lewinsky scandal which upset many religious/social conservative dems. Gun laws and the Kyoto protocol which was challenged in the state because it was seen as affecting the coal industry.
I get how some democrats want to make the whole narrative of losses as simply "we weren't left enough" and just ignore some more conventional reasons.
