Much the same happened in the Ozarks of Arkansas and Missouri, places similar in culture to the Appalachians because they were settled by people of similar stock. Barack Obama is simply a horrible cultural match for the Mountain South, an exotic city-slicker and an egghead.
The Ozarks have little coal, so it wasn't only coal.
The Ozarks were heavily Republican to begin with. That's why they're so Republican now. The region of Missouri that trended the most to the GOP was a band of counties about 50 miles outside St. Louis. That's not really the Ozarks.
From 1992 to 1912:
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/data.php?year=1992&datatype=county&def=1&fips=29&f=0&off=0&elect=0https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=1996&fips=29&f=0&off=0&elect=0https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2000&fips=29&f=0&off=0&elect=0https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2004&fips=29&f=0&off=0&elect=0https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2008&fips=29&f=0&off=0&elect=0https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2012&fips=29&f=0&off=0&elect=0Except that Republicans still dominated suburbia (St. Louis County went R) the pattern holds from as early as 1976. The Ozarks of southwestern Missouri went Republican as early as 1976. The Ozarks of south-central and southeastern Missouri had gone D for Carter and Clinton, but have drifted away from Democratic nominees. It could also be that Gore forgot his Southern roots and that John Kerry is about as much a city-slicker as anyone.
