Virginia, Tennessee were open primaries that benefitted Hillary a lot more than Bernie because those conservadems were able to vote for Trump. Meanwhile Western Pennsylvania has far less connection to the coal industry which has been in decline for decades and accelerating recently because of Cheap Natural gas from fracking.
If you wanted to know what would happen had all Appalachian states were closed primary then check out the Appalachian part of North Carolina which went for Bernie 40-50% with a lot of protest votes for "other".
In Ohio the appalachian areas were won by Hillary because it was an open primary so those pro-trump conservadems were not locked in the Democratic primary which meant Bernie couldnt bebenefit for those votes.
If you wanna get technical, perhaps Appalachia is a little too expanded as a region. Bernie did won the mountainous areas of Pennsylvania but Western Pennsylvania areas that were lower voted for Hillary.
This. West Virginia is an interesting case. Normally, the fact that it was semi-closed would've helped Hillary (though not as much as an open primary would have) because pro-Trump independents would've voted on the Republican side en masse. But with the Republican primary ending, the exact opposite took place: she actually would've been better off with a closed primary to keep out those pro-Trump independents who no longer had a reason to vote in the GOP primary. The exit poll showed tons of Sanders voters who would vote for Trump over Sanders, so clearly there was some mischief at play here among people who wanted to vote in an active contest.
The same applies in Kentucky. Normally it being closed would've hurt her due to all the Dixiecrats being locked in, but now that the GOP primary is effectively over, it being closed will help her.
