Talk Elections

Trump — 60%
Clinton — 28%

500 Likely Voters, MOE of 5%. Conducted September 13th to September 17th (so it's a little old).

Not much but the head to head. It seems to be mostly a poll for the more local (statewide) races.

Source (https://www.scribd.com/document/325385571/WV-Gov-Garin-Hart-Yang-for-Doug-Reynolds-Sept-2016?link_id=37&can_id=3988fa989da190d30e93d8a03b9a4393&source=email-morning-digest-despite-trumps-strength-in-northern-maine-cain-argues-she-has-a-path-to-victory&ema)

#Trump_Under_70

Not surprising.

So looks like a Dem internal that shows Dems leading for Gov, and slightly ahead for AG?

I can see Clinton getting slaughtered electorally in WV, considering not only the national party positions on Coal and global warming, but more importantly personally disrespecting many West Virgianians in a few major gaffes. The number still seems a bit extreme and I don't believe that Trump will win WV by over 2:1, although he'll likely win by 25 points.

Can't wait until this trash state is down to three electoral votes.

So Trump only up by 5 points compared with Romney in the whites non-educated states? Definitely won't be enough to just overcome the deficit with college whites.

Stay kind, Lief.

They'll almost certainly be down to four in the 2024 election.

Not surprising.  Trump, for whatever reason (symbolic I guess, because STRATEGIC would be lunacy, not that I'm putting lunacy past this rich idiot), has given WV extra special attention for the entire campaign.  They were essentially given their own speaking spot at the RNC, their delegation was front and center (usually reserved for home states/convention-hosting states and such), and his rally there was absolutely raucous. 

I mean, he doesn't believe in union rights or workers' rights and his promise to put the miners back to work is empty considering its an inefficient and dying energy source compared to modern technology and even if it was still the best way to provide us with our energy needs the mine owners have figured out basically how to automate what coal IS still mined so... yea, they aren't going back to work.  At least not mining coal.

But whatever.  Many parts of that state have become Hell on earth and he's pushing literally every right button for them so its not unexpected. 

I'll go ahead and declare that this will be his best state.  I said Romney would sweep every county in 2012 and people said no way and he wound up doing it easily.  I mean, where else is Trump polling at 50% much less 60%.

I guess its that true left wing, working class streak in me, but I'm not going to engage in IceSpear-esque bashing of the state.  Its clear poverty causes many a thing; crime, aggression, resentment are the obvious ones that any liberal or leftist understands (or SHOULD).  But I'm starting to believe it has another awful symptom; insanity.

Not OK?

This very same poll shows non-Clinton Democrats doing quite well, hardly spells doom for Manchin.

While the numbers are unreliable, Justice's margin is trending upward. Cole is going to have to get a pretty strong margin among those who make up their minds between tomorrow and the election in order to win. Of course, it's WV, it can happen. But it's not a certainty like IceSpear thinks it is.

Clinton has done an amazing job in terms of ceding New Deal Democratic voters to the insanity of Trumpism...

West Virginia would be much more excited with a Biden or Bernie than a Clinton....

Democratic centrism a la DLC is a cold corpse, that might happily feed many of the Democratic hacks on this forum, but the price of power will be a decrepit corpse based upon a handful of suburban voters, where the party gradually shrinks back to urban and suburban coffins while the House and Senate are lost forever.

Ok--- little bit of goth doom and gloom, but most of y'all on this forum has never lived or experienced actual life in small town America, and apparently it is amusing to once again pick on the "Rednecks" and "Hicks", while at the same time not realizing why Democratic support has collapsed in many formerly Democratic parts of rural and small town America over the past 24 years.

Big tent or small tent... your choice.

Tired of the Redneck stereotypes, so any of y'all want to keep promoting that, good luck.

The Senate and House and most Governorships will be Republican forever....

If I was DNC chair, I would make getting back WV a top priority. Make it very clear that anti-coal democrats are in the wrong, in fact, kick them out of the party if they won't change their views. Make being pro-coal one of the first things the democratic platform lists, and stress its importance. Apologize over and over again in TV ads for your pure stupidity, recklessness, and destruction of jobs in being anti-coal. Say that you are thankful for the punishment the state gave the democratic party, and have learned from it.

lolno

lolyes

His post was absurd. Democrats should apologize for caring about the future of the planet? I don't think so. If they lose WV for the next 30 years, it's worth it.

Well luckily you're not the DNC chair.

The fewer votes the Democratic Party gets from that garbage state, the better.

Seriously.

One of the best things about the Obama era is we finally stopped pandering to these people.

It's thousands upon thousands of jobs, and these people depend on it. Enough said.

And a unified pro-coal message from the national democratic party could help get KY and IN into battleground territory, get NC into Lean/Likely D territory, keep OH/PA from continuing in any republican trend they may or may not have, and maybe make up some ground in parts of Tennessee and Oklahoma. So Democrats would really benefit from being pro-coal. Dem voters who are against coal would just hold their nose and vote for the party anyways. I mean, who else are they going to vote for? The Greens? ROFL

"Let's sacrifice the environment to secure our political future 'cause what else are those pro-renewable voters going to do? Vote for the Greens? ROFL"

A smarter idea would be to keep telling them that coal's dead and help massively subsidize vocational/trade schools for those that want it to get them set up in other jobs and actually be able to do something else.

WTF would the Democrats endorse something that has NO future for purely political gain?  Why would they advocate for something that is dying? Why would they reverse position? You really think that Democrats would just suck it up and vote for the party embracing a backwards environmental/economic policy? I mean, why not endorse "religious freedom" ie permitting discrimination against gays and lesbians? I mean, if they decided to agree to focus on overturning Roe or restrict access to women's healthcare, that'll get some evangelicals.... right?

Coal is dying and instead of being honest about that, people living in those states do deserve better than being placated.

Even if I accepted your premise that politics is more important than the future of the planet (which I don't), this is a terrible idea for many reasons:

1. Only 31% of Americans and only 21% of Democrats think there should be "more emphasis" on coal. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/161519/americans-emphasis-solar-wind-natural-gas.aspx)
2. Those coal jobs are NEVER COMING BACK. The price of coal energy will simply never be able to compete with the price of natural gas thanks to fracking. It's not because of the evil EPA and their regulations.
3. Democrats in Appalachia are much, much more socially conservative than the rest of the country. They won't be coming back to the Dems just because of coal.

I have to assume you are pretty ignorant on this subject, because you seem to believe that if the Democrats suddenly became pro-coal all those jobs would magically come back and everyone in coal country would be happy again. I hate to break it to you, but that's not how it works.

I see Wulfric is still being insufferable. Sad to see he's supporting Hillary!

The future of this planet is infinitely more important than giving a few hillbillies temporary jobs.

and in fact the dems are running this cycle with a literal coal mine-owner for gov.

1) West Virginia only has 5 electoral votes, and could lose one in the next census.
2) Unlike Democratic hope states, West Virginia has elected Democrats statewide even to this day, and will likely continue to do so this year. Georgia has not since 2006, South Carolina barely elected a Democrat to an obscure statewide office in 2006, Texas last did so in 1994. States that Democrats can win Presidentially, some of them have poor records for statewide Democrats, such as Ohio and Florida. So West Virginia is not exactly a lost cause for Democrats in the sense of adding Senate, Governor and potentially house seat numbers after Obama leaves office. 
3) Many of them just swung so hard Republican Presidentially due to the state being overwhelmingly religious, socially conservative and white. Many are single issue coal voters even.
4) The coal obsession there needs to stop. It has been in decline and will be in decline, especially as alternative sources become more viable.

The easy coal seams have been mined.  The big coal mining is now in the western USA.

When the coal barons dominated West Virginia before 1932, the state was firmly Republican. Barons of an industry can dominate politics if they have a dying industry upon which the state politics depends, and campaign contributions matter more than do workers' votes.

bigger appalachia is the kind of region crawling into the womb of the "right" on a global level right now.

usually places which have long tradition of union-leftwing-voting and have been unable to adjust.

as long as coal is seen as the only solution, the problem won't be solved.

Yeah, let's screw over humanity just to gain a few votes in West Virginia! ::)

I'm all in favor of winning back West Virginia, but we have to do it in a way that doesn't destroy any hope for the planet. Thank God Wulfric isn't the DNC chair.

Would love to hear your moderate hero plan to make WV viable again

Don't have one, I'm just not a prick about it like you two.

Agreed with the last part...

We went through this in Oregon back in the 1980s and 1990s, when entire communities of rural and small town Oregon were hit massively by the inevitable decline in the timber industry driven by decades of over-harvesting of timber on public lands.

As part of the compromise worked out under the Bill Clinton administration, there was significant Federal monies invested in job retraining, support to school districts that were heavily dependent on timber dollars, promotion of "eco-tourism", and other means of mitigating the social impact caused by the dramatic permanent collapse of one of the key pillars of the state's economy.

I see no reason why a similar approach in coal dependent communities would not only be the ethical and right thing to do, since coal is essentially dying as a long term industry mainly as a result of free-market economic forces, and to a lesser extent the growth of renewable energy sources and also be something that in theory Republicans should support but won't, because they are in the pockets of Big Coal and the Koch brothers.

Granted Clinton did talk about this during the WV primaries to some extent, but it was overshadowed by what appeared to many in WV (And Appalachia in general) as extremely insensitive comments.

Seriously dude?

Except they've tried to do just that, and it's utterly failed. My Dad used to work for Joy Global, got laid off in February. Best job he could find to replace forced him to take an almost $10 paycut, even with the fact he has an associates. Same with my brother in law, who went from a well paying job checking local waters for mine run off to being forced to work for a cable company (He's got a bachelors). So please, do enlighten me as to how this is supposed to work, because just saying so doesn't form a coherent strategy. For the record millions has been put for former coal workers to get more education, the simple fact of the matter is that there aren't any quality jobs to replace coal and most lack the money to move elsewhere.

And for the record Red Avatars, do continue calling people like my father who's worked for 30 years in the coal industry and served 12 years in the Military "Hillbilly Trash". It's that elitism which has insured you won't win Appalachia anytime soon.

Coal is on its way out. Sure, it will stay here for decades but ultimately the opportunities will decrease as other energy sources take its place.

The government needs to retrain people and assist them to find jobs in other industries but wishful thinking isn't going to make coal any less polluting or an infinite resource

Not necessarily. Green energy is still a long ways off from being cost effective as is fusion, and I don't think I need to talk about peak oil and the challenges currently presented towards fraking.


Again, they've tried that and failed. As well, what other industries do you have in mind for Appalachia? Speaking as a person who lives here, outside of some industrial activities in a few cities already distressed, there aren't any other options for us. As for coal itself, here in the US alone we've got enough to maintain current demands for centuries. As far as pollutants, with the proper tech, you only have to worry about CO2.

Epic--- for the record don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, because I never have, nor ever will  disrespect the proud history of Coal Miners in America. I've stood up against some of the suburban kids on the forum that have a kneejerk response to anything involving WV or Coal Country in general. There are some jerks on this forum that continue to ply on Appalachian stereotypes that have no experience or reality, but simply have whatever axes to grind with nothing to back it up.

Growing up in a timber dependent state, I know first-hand how entire communities can be destroyed almost overnight as a result of a dramatic collapse of good paying union jobs in the forests and the timber mills.

When I was in college in Ohio back in the early '90s I brought the UMWA to my college campus to speak shortly after the Pittston Coal Strike, when there were subsequent industrial actions against "double breasting" and union busting tactics. I still have a camouflage T-Shirt with a proud UMWA '93 on the front that the union rep gave me, that I wear proudly. :)

Agreed that there needs to be a more comprehensive approach to Coal Country, which has been neglected by both major political parties .

As the son of a Coal Miner, I'm sure you're already well aware of the struggles in the 1990s, but posting this basic article at least for some of the others on the forum that don't have the attention for more detailed analysis, to at least provide a slight starting point on this issue.

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

And for those "Democrats" on the forum that don't have a clue and still continue to treat Coal Miners and Appalachian-Americans as a bunch of "racist hillbillies", there has been almost 150 years of the Operators bringing successive waves of European immigrants to work in the mines, speaking many different native languages, the use of scabs trying to pit "White" miners against "Black" miners all in an attempt to bust the union.

They lost in that attempt.... but unfortunately Post WW II a Democratic President led a direct assault on the Miners and "Taft-Hartley" (Truman) followed up by assaults under successive Democratic and Republican administrations alike that were beholden to the power of Big Coal.

Video of the Pittston strike from the voices of the Miners....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EQm2MZ8I-Q

RIP WV

The only suspense here is if Trump cracks 90% among the Racist WV Hick demographic.

You seem to be happy about it, hence you being a grade-A asshole.

Is WV the only state you defend so vehemently? lol

I hear NJ, FL, and OK could use some backup. ;)

They certainly deserve better than having a bunch of frauds claiming they'll "make coal great again".  Though they have some culpability for falling for it.

I do vacillate between the best option for WV, consolidation with sharp defunding of state roads and  4 year universities, or just letting it collapse and drive people out of state.

...what?

The State of WV is responsible for the Sixth largest road system among all the states.  There are state road and then there are county roads.  WV doesn't have the population, size, traffic, income to support all those roads.  Obviously, WV can't afford all those roads.  Many should be converted to county roads and the counties that can't maintain them...oh well. 

WV has twelve 4yr public universities, several of them very close to each other and rather small.  They can't afford this.  Maybe 8-10 tops

WV is basically Detroit spread over a much more difficult terrain.

Could Trump crack 70% in WV if there really is a tape of him saying the N word?

Ah, okay. I wasn't aware there was so much redundancy.

If those states were hurting as badly as WV and some sick assholes on the internet were seeming to find amusement in the situation, I'd call them out for being jerks, too.