West Virginia shift from 1996-2000

[OSR stands with Israel]

Clinton won West Virginia by 15 points significantly above his national average what happened that caused gore to lose that in 2000 by 4-5 points I mean that's going from a +6 democratic state to plus 4-5 republican in one election

[BuckeyeNut]

Al "Kyoto Protocol Today, Kyoto Protocol Tomorrow, Kyoto Protocol Forever" Gore ran in coal-country.

[Intell]

Al "Kyoto Protocol Today, Kyoto Protocol Tomorrow, Kyoto Protocol Forever" Gore ran in coal-country.

He generally won coal county? No?

[BuckeyeNut]

Al "Kyoto Protocol Today, Kyoto Protocol Tomorrow, Kyoto Protocol Forever" Gore ran in coal-country.

He generally won coal county? No?

He lost most of Appalachia, so I'd say no.

[Green Line]

They got angry.

[Sumner 1868]

Well, here's what the New York Times said at the time:

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/28/us/2000-campaign-final-days-heavily-democratic-west-virginia-apathy-worse-toward.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/05/us/2000-campaign-west-virginia-gore-trying-catch-up-democrat-dominated-state.html

[Intell]

Al "Kyoto Protocol Today, Kyoto Protocol Tomorrow, Kyoto Protocol Forever" Gore ran in coal-country.

He generally won coal county? No?

He lost most of Appalachia, so I'd say no.

He won SE Kentucky, Southern WV and SW Virginia, heart of coal country.

[DINGO Joe]

Al "Kyoto Protocol Today, Kyoto Protocol Tomorrow, Kyoto Protocol Forever" Gore ran in coal-country.

He generally won coal county? No?

He lost most of Appalachia, so I'd say no.

He won SE Kentucky, Southern WV and SW Virginia, heart of coal country.

He didn't win them all, and not by a particularly big margin in the ones he won.  Compare his margins to Dukakis, Gore actually ran better in some non-coal parts of the state than Dukakis, but performed poorly in coal counties, both North and South

[Nym90]

Gore's performance at the time was poor for a Democrat in coal country. Of course, today it would be considered wonderful.

[DINGO Joe]

It should be noted that what passes for "coal country"  has shifted over the years as Eastern KY, South WV and SWVA have all lost jobs and coal tonnage at a greater rate than the overall coal market.

Kentucky provides excellent public information and shows how badly things have collapsed for EKY

http://energy.ky.gov/Coal%20Facts%20Library/Kentucky%20Quarterly%20Coal%20Report%20(Q2-2016).pdf

PG 5 Illustrates everything

One should note that while EKY does still have a few more coal jobs than WKY, WKY produces more coal.  WKY is dominated by a few longwall mines that produce big quantities with few workers, while EKY is dominated by mom and pop operations trying to squeeze the last few rocks out of the hills.

The narrative is a little different in WV as there is more met coal in South WV, which fetches a higher price than thermal and thus enables more manpower to pursue it, even so, North WV actually outproduces the South now even though employment is less in the North (again big longwall mines are the reason).

WV doesn't have nice tidy info like KY, but the blog entry provides a bit of an overview:

http://www.wvpolicy.org/coal-production-shifting-to-northern-west-virginia/

It's a bit dated, but things have gotten much worse for South WV since then.

My point is that what people think of coal counties are frequently just counties with the carcass of coal left.

[catographer]

We think of a Democrat doing well in Appalachia today as winning at least a couple if not a dozen or so counties in the region. In 2000, as the Times' description of "Solidly Democratic" West Virginia suggests, doing well in Appalachia for a Democrat meant outright winning (see Clinton '92 & '96).