There's A Democrat So Far Right In West Virginia ALEC Loves Him

Last May, West Virginia was Bernie territory. The Democratic primary-- which drew about 40,000 more voters than the Republican primary-- saw Bernie sweep every single county in the state. Statewide it was Bernie 123,860 (51.4%) to Hillary 86,354 (35.8%). Unfortunately for Hillary, many Bernie voters have told pollsters that they would vote for Trump rather than her. An exit poll by CBS News found that among the Bernie voters 44% said they'd vote for Trump, 23% said they'd vote for Hillary and 31% said they'd vote for neither. ABC'd exit poll didn't look as dismal, with Bernie voters going for Hillary with 48% and for Trump with 32%.

That said, more West Virginians voted in the Democratic gubernatorial primary than in their presidential primary-- 241,016 in the presidential race and 256,779 in the 3-way gubernatorial race, in which the state's only billionaire, Jim Justice, got 131,845 votes (51.3%). West Virginia was still voting Democratic in 1988 when it was one of only 10 states to go for Dukakis over George H.W. Bush. In 1992 West Virginia was Clinton country-- giving bill Clinton a double digit edge over Bush again-- and in 1996, the last time West Virginia voted for a Democrat, it gave Clinton a very comfortable 51.51% win over Dole (36.76%) and Perot (11.26%). Since then every election has seen West Virginia give bigger and bigger margins to the GOP in presidential elections. By Obama's reelection bid in 2012 Romney beat him 62.30% to a dismal 35.54%. Only Utah (24.75%), Wyoming (27.82%), Idaho (32.62%), and Oklahoma (33.23%) were redder.

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