WV-PPP: D: Sanders 45% Clinton 37%, R: Trump 61%, Cruz 22% Kasich 14%

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What is wrong with this state?

Well, what do Clinton and Sanders have to offer it, really?

Appalachian coal country's problems are so severe, so acute, and so different from those of most of the rest of the country that a Democratic campaign that was really interested in competing for its vote qua its vote would have to devote a great deal of time, attention, and energy specifically to crafting policies to help ameliorate those problems, and even more time, attention, and energy to selling those policies. Personally I think there should be somebody doing this (and would have hoped, in the past, that Sanders might), but that isn't how things are going this cycle.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Appalachian coal country's problems are so severe, so acute, and so different from those of most of the rest of the country that a Democratic campaign that was really interested in competing for its vote qua its vote would have to devote a great deal of time, attention, and energy specifically to crafting policies to help ameliorate those problems, and even more time, attention, and energy to selling those policies. Personally I think there should be somebody doing this (and would have hoped, in the past, that Sanders might), but that isn't how things are going this cycle.

I know it's not the focus of this topic, but what are those acute issues? I definitely know that West Virginia is different, but why? My jump to, coal, doesn't look like it can be the main drive. From what I can glean on the topic it only employs around 30,000 people in a state where the total labor force is 785,500, and the unemployment rate is just slightly above the national average. Is that enough to drive the entire focus of the state to the point at which a third candidate stands a chance of getting such a large number of votes? What part am I missing here?

The problem is that:

1. Non-coal parts of the state's labor force function (or functioned) in a manner ancillary to the coal industry and supporting it.
2. West Virginia's culture is hugely tied up in the values and mythology of the coal industry.