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.
Old School Republican---- the conversation was about the Democratic Primary results of '16 and not the General Election Results of '96....
I am the well aware of the voting patterns in West Virginia in Presidential Elections over the Decades...
Since you brought up the GE results in WV in '96 and beyond, that is an entirely different question, but certainly worthy of discussion and debate in it's own right.
The reality is that although Coal has long been a symbolic Industry that the vast majority of West Virginians identify with as part of shared identity and social narrative, there haven't been that many jobs directly nor indirectly associated with the Coal Industry for quite some time....
Bill Clinton's win in WV in '92 and '96 was a lagging indicator, and not a leading indicator....
By that I mean that despite Bill Clinton not defending the Heart of Coal Country against a direct assault against the United Mine Workers of America, he was still able to perform relatively well within those parts of WV that had a high level of Ancestral Trade Union history, and was still able to hold up decent numbers in many rural counties in the State, where Coal was not King.
Throw in a Robert Dole, running against a Bill Clinton running for reelection, when we starting to recover from the Bush Senior recession, sure WV went for Bill Clinton by a decent number.
Ok--- so fast forward to 2000, Gore is associated with the failures of the Clinton Administration in WV.
As the Veep, he is considered to be a key player and rep of Clintonian economic policies... Throw in a bit of the "environmentalist" angle at a time where the reality of Democratic and Republican administrations alike busted the balls of the UMWA....
Why would a solid Union Democratic voter in WV support Al Gore? Why vote at all?
Bill Clinton and the Coal Operators busted the United Mine Workers of America, and now the Democrats in 2000 nominated an "Environmentalist" and meanwhile you have this supposed Moderate Faith Based Republican, at a time where many rural and small town voters were shifting heavily against the Free Trade Agenda of the Clinton Administration....
It is a sad, sad, day in America where Trump was actually able to successfully articulate a message that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama should have heard, despite all of these various Free Trade bills getting rammed through with Republican Votes in the House and Senate, and the only ones standing up were Democrats in the House and Senate, and few Republicans from Northern and Midwestern States.
Sorry.... There used to be a direct relation from the Coal Industry, to the Steel Industry, to the Auto Industry, as part of a supply-chain operation that helped make America the economic powerhouse that it was over 100 years ago.
There was a time only a few decades back, where the Steelworker Unions (USW), Auto Workers Uniolns (UAW), and Coal Miner Unions (UMWA) actually were able to present detailed presentations to management to how we could improve both economic production, while also maintaining the American Middle-Class among workers in these industries.
Unfortunately, under the leadership of Ronald Reagan the bosses turned directly towards Class War, and did not heed the advice of the USW, UAW, and UMW during the late '70s.
