Describe a Clinton 2016 voter in West Virginia

[Blow by blow, the passion dies]

Probably an inhabitant of Charleston or suburbs, or a diehard Democrat who votes for any nominee

[TDAS04]

A professor in Morgantown. 

[One Term Floridian]

Holdover Clinton supporter from the 90s in coal country that has either died or switched to GOP other than Manchin and maybe a local race or two.

[US Politics Fanatic]

A poor person who believed the republican party is the party of the riches.

[NorCalifornio]

There were nearly 189,000 of them, presumably they came in all different sorts.

Now a Romney 2012/Clinton 2016 voter in West Virginia, that would be an interesting question.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Just because she had the lowest number of votes in WV for a Democratic nominee since women had gotten the right to vote a century before doesn't mean they'd be that hard to find.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

There were nearly 189,000 of them, presumably they came in all different sorts.

Now a Romney 2012/Clinton 2016 voter in West Virginia, that would be an interesting question.

It's funny that from like 2012-2014 conventional wisdom (including on this site probably) was that there would be a lot of Romney 2012-Clinton 2016 voters.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

There were nearly 189,000 of them, presumably they came in all different sorts.

Now a Romney 2012/Clinton 2016 voter in West Virginia, that would be an interesting question.

It's funny that from like 2012-2014 conventional wisdom (including on this site probably) was that there would be a lot of Romney 2012-Clinton 2016 voters.

People thought that before Trump won the nomination or was even an announced candidate?

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

There were nearly 189,000 of them, presumably they came in all different sorts.

Now a Romney 2012/Clinton 2016 voter in West Virginia, that would be an interesting question.

It's funny that from like 2012-2014 conventional wisdom (including on this site probably) was that there would be a lot of Romney 2012-Clinton 2016 voters.

People thought that before Trump won the nomination or was even an announced candidate?

I meant specifically Romney 2012-Clinton 2016 voters in West Virginia and Appalachia more broadly to be more accurate. The conventional wisdom was that because Hillary still had residual popularity in the region she’d be able to outperform Obama and potentially even win back those states. I think some very early polling which showed her vs generic Republicans even reflected this. I think that started to fade after the 2014 midterms when Pryor lost his seat and Natalie Tennant got blown out in WV.

[Mr. Smith]

Her campaign manager for the state, who did technically outperform Richard Ojeda in 2018...or Mooney was just that embarrassing, idk which.

[VPH]

Her campaign manager for the state, who did technically outperform Richard Ojeda in 2018...or Mooney was just that embarrassing, idk which.

Mooney is bad. He almost blew a safe-ish seat in 2014 while the GOP profited from a wave. Even in 2020, the Dem Congressional nominee ran quite a bit ahead of Joe Biden.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Most of the current office holders including Joe Manchin

[One Term Floridian]

Most of the current office holders including Joe Manchin

Most? Heck I'm not even sure Jim Justice voted for Hillary. I think it was in the cards for a while for him to switch to the GOP. He was merely taking advantage of the institutional resources the WV Dems had at the time.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Most of the current office holders including Joe Manchin

Most? Heck I'm not even sure Jim Justice voted for Hillary. I think it was in the cards for a while for him to switch to the GOP. He was merely taking advantage of the institutional resources the WV Dems had at the time.

I doubt Justice did as he was a Rep until 2015 but Manchin endorsed Clinton.

[One Term Floridian]

Most of the current office holders including Joe Manchin

Most? Heck I'm not even sure Jim Justice voted for Hillary. I think it was in the cards for a while for him to switch to the GOP. He was merely taking advantage of the institutional resources the WV Dems had at the time.

I doubt Justice did as he was a Rep until 2015 but Manchin endorsed Clinton.

Yeah Manchin voted for her, but that's it in terms of current prominent office holders in WV.

[Schiff for Senate]

Her campaign manager for the state, who did technically outperform Richard Ojeda in 2018...or Mooney was just that embarrassing, idk which.

Mooney is bad. He almost blew a safe-ish seat in 2014 while the GOP profited from a wave. Even in 2020, the Dem Congressional nominee ran quite a bit ahead of Joe Biden.

And in 2022, Mooney was the biggest House underperformer in the GOP (compared to Trump’s 2020 performance in his district).

He’s a carpetbagger from MD. He literally moved to WV not long before running in 2014, and his opponent in that election slammed him on it. In spite of that, and the fact that his predecessor, now-Senator Shelly Moore Capito, was very popular (outperforming Mitt Romney by nearly 20 points in 2012, and in a region where Democrats do much better in downballot races than in presidential ones, especially back then), I still consider the 2012-2014 swing in WV02 to be tremendous. It was a red wave, and yet the county swung nearly 40 points to the left in 2012, from Capito+40 (as Romney had won by 22) to Mooney+3.

[Schiff for Senate]

There were nearly 189,000 of them, presumably they came in all different sorts.

Now a Romney 2012/Clinton 2016 voter in West Virginia, that would be an interesting question.

This. Notably, not a single one of the state’s 55 counties swung leftward in 2016. And all but one (college county Monongalia, which despite voting for Trump both times was both Clinton’s and Biden’s strongest county statewide) trended rightward as well. That said, the eastern panhandle of the state includes some of DC’s outer suburbs and is actually beginning to trend D now, though like the rest of the state it’s still very red. I’m guessing WV’s few Romney/Clinton voters came from Monongalia, Kanawha, select parts of the Eastern Panhandle, and probably smaller urban counties like Cabell.