Why did Bernie do so well in Hillary 2008 landslide areas?

[coolface1572]

Why did so many states and counties which went heavily for Hillary Clinton in 2008 go so heavily to bernie in 2016? What made so many people change their opinion of her?

[AGA]

Really old topic, but I'll give you a short explanation. I'm assuming you're referring to places like Eastern KY and WV. In 2008, these states were rapidly being lost to the Republicans due to the Democratic party being seen as more of an elitist party that would have been bad for coal. HRC was a bit more moderate than Obama and was tied to Bill Clinton, who was quite popular in these areas. National politics and the perception of HRC changed a lot from 2008-2016. HRC was seen as the elitist candidate and Sanders was seen as the more populist, working-class choice who was outside of the Democratic established that "abandoned" these areas (even though he was further to the left on climate, but whatever).