A tale of one united virginia

[christian peralta]

What if west Virginia is still part of virginia, what would be the results for presidential elections from lbj to trump?

Does west virginia have enough population to outnumber the northern Virginia area and forces the rest of Virginia to vote democrat in 1968 and 1976 and then republican in 2008, 12 and 16?

[President of the great nation of 🏳️‍⚧️]

2012/16, yes, but not 2008.

[OctoCube]

1968 No, 1976 Yes.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

2012/16, yes, but not 2008.

I guess I'd buy that because West Virginia gave Obama a lot more support in 2008 than it gave him in 2012 or gave Clinton in 2016.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

Would have flipped Virginia to Bill Clinton in 1996.

[Averroës Nix]

West Virginia would probably look different and vote differently if it were the hinterland to a much wealthier state and not independent, don't you think?

[Adam Griffin]

I bet Obama would have won this hypothetical state in 2012; as-is, he only lost it by around 30k. Had it been one and the same, there's no way the WV portion of the state wouldn't have been contested like the VA portion, with tons of resources poured into it. There'd be field offices in towns of a few thousand people - just like in VA in 2012/2016. Because of that, WV wouldn't be a 70/30 result like it is today.

West Virginia would probably look different and vote differently if it were the hinterland to a much wealthier state and not independent, don't you think?

And yes, I suppose this sword could cut both ways: would WV have a big of a blue-collar Democratic tradition had it been conjoined all this time? Would campaigns investing in the broader state be able to offset it? Would VA's culture been affected enough by its presence to put the state out of contention (or even accelerate its D trend)?

[President Johnson]

Trump would have won the Virginia-at-large, but just barely, what surprised me. I did a Thread on this earlier this month.

The results would have been (from the linked thread above):

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