How are these swing states trending?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

West Virginia-Strongly populist

True. Ask Governer-Elect Manchin.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Most states don't trend

[Filuwaúrdjan]

1. Pennsylvania doesn't do trends. It does swings. Lots and lots of swings. And freak turnouts. And ticket splitting (hell, it's probably the ticket splitting capital of the U.S...).
Anyone trying to fit PA (even broad regions, maybe even the larger counties, of PA come to think of it) into "trends" is fooling themselves.

2. If WV is trending Republican how come the Democratic candidate won the open Gubernatorial seat with over 60% of the vote? How come it's sole GOP representative has to vote like a Democrat to get re-elected?

3. Please accept that Rationalism is irrational

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Swings happen all the time. Genuine trends are pretty rare... you cannot just line all the states up and fiddle around with a calculator and expect to be able to accurately predict future election results.

Besides you need to look at all the results in the state not just Presidential results, otherwise the picture can be messed up by all sorts of things.