Obama beats a federal prisoner by less than 20% in the West Virginia D. Primary.

[old timey villain]

He'll probably lose Boone county

[old timey villain]

I just don't understand why West Virginia is still a democratic state. It seems they would have followed the rest of the south and switched allegiance to the GOP years ago.

Clearly the democratic party has become too progressive for them. Maybe 50 years ago the heart of the party lay in the small towns of West Virginia and the south, but now it resides in places like New England, inner cities and wealthy suburbs. The rest of the south sensed this shift years ago.

Yet, now WV has opted for the awkward position of electing senators and congressman who are almost constantly at odds with the base of the party- so you end up with Senators like Joe Manchin who aren't even sure if they'll vote for his party's nominee for president.

Folks in WV want their democrats to be pro life, anti gay, war hawks, conservative on immigration, fundamentalist christian, and friendly to coal and other big businesses. Now- I think the Democratic party has a big tent, but it's still not big enough to house a democrat like that who would be much more at home with the Republicans.

[old timey villain]

did their Great-Great-Grandfathers registered them as democrats in about 1868 and no one has bothered to switch? LOL. The Union dynamic is interesting.  These are the people the democrats are orphaning off and the republicans are slowly gobbling them up.         

I don't think they are Civil War-era Democrats, I think it's mostly a 20th century phenomenon. It's more like the Iron Range than like Mississippi (but not much like either.)

The only difference being that voters in the iron range still came out for Obama and supported him about as much as any other democratic presidential candidate. Obama still dominated this region in 2008 and there was no swing against him as there was in WV.

WV Coal and MN Iron democrats may be similar, but only one group wasn't terrified by the color of his skin and his name.