West Virginia - 62% Romney, all county sweep, fifth most Republican state

[Nichlemn]

I didn't expect that. Despite Obama's apparent unpopularity in coal country, I thought he couldn't really be perceived that much worse here than in 2008. Oops. Nate Silver didn't expect it either, projecting 41.3% of the vote for Obama, nearly 6 points higher than his actual result of 35.5% (and more than his +/- 4.8% margin of error).

[The Ex-Factor]

Bit surprised that it wasn't lower than 35.5%, to be frank. Looks like the "war on coal" was a real thing. Makes you wonder if even someone like Schweitzer who'd you think would play well in West Virginia could win it these days.

[Mister Twister]

Imagine if it was someone like Mike Huckabee instead of Mitt Romney? Huckabeee would probably break 70%

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

It was a perfect storm in coal country. I'll write up an analysis later. I'm surprised and very disappointed, and admit that I was wrong on how it would swing.

[The Ex-Factor]

Check out that shift from 2008. McDowell County went from 53.3% Obama, 44.8% McCain to 64.1% Romney 34.0% Obama

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president

[tmthforu94]

I live in a "coal city." Voted 56% for McCain in `08. Yesterday it voted 73% for Romney.

[Miles]

I'd quite honestly put Rahall on retirement watch for 2014; his district swung the hardest Republican. Rahall himself did worse than in 2010, which was already considered a close result considering his past landslides. He dropped from 56% to 53.9%.

[Chaddyr23]

Dukakis won here?! It's so emblematic of the direction WV has gone compared to VA. One is a fast growing, diverse and dynamic state. One represents the America of years ago.

[DemPGH]

Double whammy in West "by God" Virginia: race + perceived socialism, and frankly I can't say which is worse except that in West Virginia there can be nothing worse than a Black "socialist" (quotations because Obama is decidedly not a socialist). 

[memphis]

Coal has had a catastrophic four years. Due to the invention of hydraulic fracturing, the price of natural gas has plumetted. This wasn't hard to predict.

[Indy Texas]

Coal has had a catastrophic four years. Due to the invention of hydraulic fracturing, the price of natural gas has plumetted. This wasn't hard to predict.

^ This. But it's easier for a Republican to accuse the EPA of a reign of terror than it is for a Democrat to explain how energy markets work.

Does anyone know how WV's state/local races went? How much longer can Democrats there seal themselves off from association with the national party/image?

[Benj]

Coal has had a catastrophic four years. Due to the invention of hydraulic fracturing, the price of natural gas has plumetted. This wasn't hard to predict.

^ This. But it's easier for a Republican to accuse the EPA of a reign of terror than it is for a Democrat to explain how energy markets work.

Does anyone know how WV's state/local races went? How much longer can Democrats there seal themselves off from association with the national party/image?

I think not so much easier as just not worthwhile for the Democrats. Coal country doesn't really extend into currently competitive states much, especially since Pennsylvania was all but conceded by Romney until the final week of the campaign.

But, yeah, this was predictable. The natural gas boom has destroyed what was left of the coal industry, and the incumbent was always going to be punished for it, regardless of what he did. Nor is there really much you can do to help workers who are entirely dependent on an industry that is being naturally outcompeted, at least aside from welfare that they oppose at the ballot box. Fortunately, coal country is only a tiny sliver of the vote in VA and PA and all but politically irrelevant otherwise.

[Frodo]

Coal has had a catastrophic four years. Due to the invention of hydraulic fracturing, the price of natural gas has plumetted. This wasn't hard to predict.

^ This. But it's easier for a Republican to accuse the EPA of a reign of terror than it is for a Democrat to explain how energy markets work.

Does anyone know how WV's state/local races went? How much longer can Democrats there seal themselves off from association with the national party/image?

This thread has the answers -some of them.

 

[Devils30]

McDowell is one of the worst places imaginable on this earth. Its about $15K income and 35% poverty, kind of funny this is where Romney improved (many 47%ers)

[Mister Twister]

Even Manchin did pretty damn bad. There is no future for the Democrats in West Virginia. Fortunately for the Democrats, the coal miners in West Virginia are not needed nor wanted in the Democratic coalition.

[DemPGH]

You guys are right to mention coal, absolutely (which was used here in western PA as well). What I know of WV is first person, largely, since I did a Bachelors and a Masters at WVU, all about 10-15 years ago. The real decline started with Gore, who was seen as too hippie, too environmentalist, and too anti-gun (this was a big issue, and gun control really raised ire), and I suspect that the proliferation of the Internet and 24-hour news at that time in the middle late 1990s had a lot to do with it. I know that folks from the Philly area were in a bit of culture shock there. For some reason, Dukakis and Clinton were acceptable. Then the bottom fell out for national Dems. The likely reason is that people started to gather that the national Dem party is really no longer 1960s era blue collar populist. The 1980s changed that.

You have to take into consideration that there are many local factors at work in forming people's attitudes, and the state is fairly isolated. Unions are popular, but anti-Red attitudes persist, as to do racist attitudes.

[BaldEagle1991]

I find it odd that state like West Virginia be so conservative when it was founded as a breakaway state from Virginia to avoid being a slave state.

[Frodo]

I find it odd that state like West Virginia be so conservative when it was founded as a breakaway state from Virginia to avoid being a slave state.

West Virginia broke off from its parent-state because it wished to stay in the Union.  Like Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, it entered the Union as a slave state -but it entered as a loyal slave state. 

[old timey villain]

This really makes me sad. I always figured the anti Obama wave in WV was real, but I didn't realize how strong it is. It's really depressing to see counties like Boone vote so strongly for Romney, even after voting Obama in 2008.

I think the new emergent Democratic coalition is awesome. It's great to see progressives, young people, minorities, LGBT folks and single women come together and form this great coalition. But at the same time it's sad to see the people in West Virginia feel left out of it, like the party left them. And maybe we did in some ways. But the Democratic party still fights for coal miners in Boone county, even if they don't want to believe it. It's like an official break up

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=158993.msg3418641#msg3418641

I literally nailed this election in every way possible and I claim a week of tooting my own horn.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I'd like to invent a time machine and go back in time until right after the 1988 election and announce that in 24 years a losing elitist Wall St. Republican Mormon who had supported abortion would get 62% of the vote in WV in 25 years. I'd be as big a joke then as Dick Morris is now.

[Miles]

I crunched the numbers by CD:



(2008)

CD1
R- 62.0% (56.6)
D- 35.8% (41.4)

CD2
R- 60.3% (54.6)
D- 37.7% (43.7)

CD3
R- 65.2% (55.7)
D- 32.6% (42.5)

[Eraserhead]

Memphis did totally call this one early on. Congrats to him.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Given that places like Arkansas barely swung (and LA/MS swung our way!), I feel this swing was mostly due to coal. Though the decline of coal is mostly due to natural gas, Obama and the EPA were easy scapegoats because the Super PACs told WV (and Ohio, Virginia, and Pennsylvania) told them so. . Note that the UMW refused to endorse a candidate this year (traditionally they go Democratic). Whoever the Democrat in 2016 is probably skyrockets in WV but still falls very short of taking it back (Hillary may win it, though). However, WV still hasn't rejected the Democratic Party as a whole; Manchin did very well (but remember, the Democrats here are coal shills too). On the bright side, I heard that an openly gay guy was elected to the state assembly.

[Holmes]

This isn't your father's West Virginia... oh wait, it is.