Talk Elections

County sweep for Mitt Romney, including historic devastating landslide margins in traditionally Democratic coal country (see also: Southwest Pennsylvania, Southeast Ohio, Kentucky).

The swings in this area are incredible.

I was wrong. The coal barons have tricked the worker even better than I thought.

Obama lost McDowell county by 30%, which represents a 38% swing. That's just sad.

Unfortunate, but not entirely surprising; plenty of reasons to vote against Obama (of course not all of these are what we might think of as entirely legit, but then electoral analysis should shy away from passing moral judgment), and essentially none to vote for him - other than the 'D' next to his name. And it's clear that that doesn't really matter that much these days, which is quite a remarkable cultural shift and worthy of comment in itself.

Also, when voters think a party or a candidate is hostile to them, they tend to be hostile to said party and/or candidate. I think the intensity of that in this case is quite clear. The question is whether this is just a reaction to Obama's obvious indifference combined with his obvious Otherness (which produces an image of hostility) or whether it's something that will now be held against the entire national Democratic party; Manchin, Tomblin and Rahall were all re-elected, so the state Dem brand has some life in it for now.

The Democrats did much better in Kentucky than they did in West Virginia, for a change.

Maybe it's time we just show West Virginia the door.

Sherrod Brown held up a bit better than Obama around my area here in Southeastern Ohio; but yeah, wasn't pretty.

Not too surprising.  Whatever the mechanism used to do it, if we get serious about reducing greenhouse gases, coal mining will take a big hit and thus coal miners.  It is in the self interest of coal miners to be opposed to taking action on climate change.  So even tho most the current malaise in coal country is die to cheap shale gas, that Obama would be a target of their contempt makes perfect sense.

What's amazing is that the whole reason West Virginia was formed was so it wouldn't have to put up with stuff like this.

While everybody has been all pissed off about high gasoline prices, this is what has happened to the price of natural gas. How would you like your job and your local economy to be producing the competition?
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2% does not count as "much better" While both states are down to only one Democratic congressman, Kentucky actually lost one while WV held the status quo of 2010.

I LOVE West Virginia <3

Eyeballing the results, it looks like close to 50% of Manchin voters voted for Romney, which is remarkable.

The Senate usually has at least one weird result like that each election. Baucus (D) got 73% in MT in 2008. Dorgan (D) got 68% in ND in 2004. Jeffords (R) got 66% in VT in 2000. Even in landslide years: Boren (D) got 76% in OK in 1984. Eastland (D) got 58% in MS in 1972, when McGovern only got 20%. Go figure out the American electorate :P

Added to that list should be sam nunn getting 80% of the vote in 1984 while reagan carried GA with 60%. He won reagan votersby 2-1!

Using Excel and the MSNBC website I've made a few semi relevant charts:
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The lack of correlation between the Obama percentage and those for other dems is fairly strange, does anyone have any ideas why?

In Mingo county, Obama got 27% while Manchin got 73%.

Its probably worth saying that Republicans now have a statewide office. The AG Darrell McGraw was narrowly swept out.

Support for the WV Democratic candidates (as opposed to Obama) reflects the traditional pattern of support that was created in the big unionisation drives in the 1930s. The areas where this political tradition was/is strongest happens to be much the same as the places where Obama is most unpopular. It's an impressive piece of partisan dislocation.

Seems closer to low forties, assuming all of Obama's supporters voted for either Manchin or the Mountain Party guy (I can't imagine that an Obama/Raese voter even exists).

But the amount of ticket-splitting in WV is incredible. Shows that candidates still matter a lot more than parties in some places.

I saw this from a mile away. 

I mostly agree, except for West Virginia. That swing against Obama was very strong. I didn't think he'd well, but to take the spot as 5th most Republican state and a county sweep is quite something. Also, on the topic of county sweeps, I thought Obama would at least hang on to Summit County in Utah (although it does fit almost perfectly with the overall swing of the state).