Talk Elections

If in the 2016 General Election for President, your choices were Hillary Clinton and a Republican candidate, for whom would you vote?

Clinton: 26%
Republican candidate: 58%

In the 2016 General Election for President, would you likely vote for a Democratic or Republican Candidate?

Democratic: 28%
Republican: 52%

If in the 2016 General Election for President, your choices were Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, for whom would you vote?

Clinton: 30%
Trump: 53%
Undecided: 17%

http://www.statejournal.com/story/29892754/survey-wv-residents-likely-to-pick-trump-over-clinton-in-2016

Ahh, West Virginia
/me sighs

Hahahahahahaha

Yeah, West Virginia's Republican trend is due to Obama. Right.

Looks like the Democrats can't claim racism with WV. The trend towards the GOP technically began with Bush in 2000 anyway.

Yeah... so much for Hillary making WV competitive or being a better fit for the state than Obama. ::)

Again... who are these people?

For comparison, Romney won West Virginia 62-35.

It's not really a big deal. But if she's doing just as bad as Obama in West Virginia, that isn't good news for her in Appalachian swing states, like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina.

A fairly common WV pollster. I don't know much about them but they did get the 2010 senate race right. I'm having trouble finding polling from more recent races.

Regardless, I think we all knew WV wasn't going to be close.

North Carolina, sure.

If WV is like this, I doubt AR will be competitive either.

AR has just completely transitioned, like WV has, to be more like TN, KY than OH or PA.

Well, pbrower2a still predicts a Clinton win in WV, KY and KS.
And no, "we" all didn't know that it wasn't going to be close.
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?;topic=216236.0
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=166588.0

In Atlas's defense, one of those threads was from 2012 and the one with the poll shows the Dems getting destroyed in these three.

This was a DUKAKIS state, making those numbers even more embarrassing. I honestly think she'll do worse than Obama in WV.

It began much earlier than that. I'm almost certain that it began in 1992.

Coal loving, EPA hating white people without a future basically. A huge percentage of them are seniors as well. Pretty much noone (young) is voluntarily moving to West Virginia these days, that should tell you all you'd need to know. It's the least desireable of the 50 US states these days. Even Mississippi is now more attractive for young people, and so is North Dakota (obviously, due to the oil rush).

I think he's asking about the pollster.

West Virginia's been long gone for Democrats since 2004. Even if Hillary doesn't lose it by 32 percent, I doubt she'll come within 20 points of the Republican. I've always thought that these "Candidate X is a good/bad fit for State Y" arguments are overly simplistic. Hillary won't significantly overperform Obama in West Virginia, Arkansas, or Kentucky (unless she wins in a landslide), and she won't significantly underperform Obama in Colorado (unless she loses badly.)

West Virginia polls generally overpoll Democrats, so this is even worse for Hillary.

Depends on your definition of significant. The state going from a 5 point D win to a 2 or 3 point R win, which I think is a reasonable CO result even if Hillary wins nationwide, seems pretty significant to me.

Except that I highly doubt that will happen. If Hillary wins by about the same margin as Obama '12, I think she wins Colorado by about the same amount as Obama. Maybe a bit less (2 or 3), maybe even a bit more, due to demographic changes. My point was that I don't buy the whole "Hillary is a good/bad fit for xxxx", and this applies to Colorado as well.

As muon pointed out in another thread, the movement of the Dems from a "labor" agenda to an "urban" agenda, which includes environmentalism and gun control emphases, have resulted in Democrats' decimation in the Mountain State (and improved prospects in VA/CO).

As a Democrat, I would rather have Virginia than West Virginia on my side.

WV -- aging population, unattractive economic conditions, dying industries, and most likely a shrinking population.

This is truly shocking. I though Hillary was going to be competitive here! /s

Alright folks, we all knew this would happen, let's move on.

Oh my god. This state may be even more Republican than Oklahoma! At this rate, I consider Manchin vulnerable, especially if a Democrat wins in 2016.

But I would question the liability of this poll. It had Sanders and Clinton close.

Yes, he's completely wrong!! Because...???

Well, that begs the question, how would Sanders do?

Indeed. I know one guy in West Virginia who was planning on voting for Hillary, until he saw an anonymous Swedish person criticize his state on an obscure political forum, so he decided to vote for Walker instead.

There are still militant unionists in West Virginia -- but the coal barons have been successful in breaking unions and the heritage of militant unions hostile to the GOP.

Want a job in West Virginia? Stay clear of a labor union. 

Losing Lean D WV to Safe R would be bad, but they flipped VA from Safe R to Lean D in the process which is a net gain.

It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for WV to become internally GOP like the rural South. Union influence might be the only thing actually stopping it as of now. Anyway, I believe a margin like that. What started to flip WV, I think, was the culture wars stuff in the '90s. From what I know of it in the late '90s, people felt very, very threatened by the kind of social progress that loomed on the horizon. It's also so economically disadvantaged and people are largely so low-information that they are vulnerable to corporate propaganda.

West Virginia is Likely R, but Clinton can win it by showing her roots to the South.

But all of the polls show YOU ARE WRONG.

West Virginia, long one of the most reliable D states, really turned on George McGovern in 1972... going R+2 that year. George McGovern was a horrible match for West Virginia -- and Barack Obama is about the same. 

Right. That's why there is no democratic party in TX and LA, and no Republican Party in WA and MN. Or wait...

Probably better, but his strong advocacy of climate change issues hurts his cause.

... Sexism, I guess?

Do you mean that you expect even the VA House of Delegates to be Dem controlled by 2024?  Because it is currently still 2:1 GOP.  Of course, the WV state senate was 2:1 Dem last year and is now GOP controlled by 1 vote after someone switched parties to break the tie.  So maybe VA Dems really could pick up 20+ suburban seats in one cycle the next time there is a Republican president, but an NY state senate situation where it is the last holdout for decades also seems quite possible.  One of the most interesting points of the Bush-Obama era is how Republicans have been able to cement their gains from state trends into there column up and down the ballot in a way that Democrats thus far haven't. 

This is true, I was thinking more of Senate races and other statewide elections (like Attorney General) and presidential elections, tbqh. But they will probably lose seats in the House of Delegates and the State Senate over time as well.

That would explain why Hillary landslided over Obama in 2008. Oh wait, that's got to be racism. Looks like the state is racist and sexist :P

WV may be the only state where there wasn't much of an age gap in 2014. KY had an age gap, with younger voters strongly favoring Grimes. WV was another matter.

Still, this poll is junk. The question on the Iran treaty is proof of that. So is the question on the death penalty. If that many people in WV supported the death penalty, it would already be a death penalty state.

A bit more about Orion Strategies. According to this, Orion is a right-wing hack pollster...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Scheunemann

You're right, this poll is junk - Republicans will beat her by even more.

Indeed, the Democratic Party is a poor fit for West Virginia, and that's their problem.