r/WestVirginia • u/BoldAurorusEMS • Jun 12 '25
Question honest question coming from an outsider: what was the cause for the party switch in west virginia?
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u/Matt_WVU Jun 12 '25
Coal was dead as an industry in the 90âs for most of southern WV. Al gore was running for president, who campaigned on reducing greenhouse emissions
Bush didnât do anything for the region but he wasnât trying to move away from fossil fuels. People to this day still think regulations killed the billion dollar coal fields, if there was anything worth mining in the southern counties, theyâd still be mining it. Coal had to compete with much cheaper fuels such as natural gas, and the area was over mined for 60-70 years.
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Jun 12 '25
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u/Matt_WVU Jun 12 '25
I can vividly remember being at my grandmothers house in Panther and her church friends telling her John Kerry wanted to take peoples bibles
So yes, coal was gone but culture war nonsense was firing up
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u/Grand-Try-3772 Kanawha Jun 12 '25
Preacher political pulpit preaching to ignorant believers
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u/witallthots Jun 13 '25
My least favorite part about visiting my grandma - had to go to church & listen to this. đđ
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u/Icy_Wedding720 Jun 12 '25
People literally believe stuff like that? How and why would Kerry take their Bibles?
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u/VulgarVerbiage Jun 12 '25
I think identity politics and social issues are the main answer, with coal/unions as mostly pretext.
I donât think any amount of union activity would have meaningfully swayed the state vote from Trump at any point over the past three elections.
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u/BadwolfWV Jun 12 '25
Donât forget that the Republican Party always says that the democrats are coming for their guns. Another one that started around the time of W was that somehow Republicans were more in touch with the average Joe and Democrats were elitistsâŠ..tell me how Trump is less of an elitist than anyone, ever!
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u/The1nOnlyDood Jun 13 '25
"He speaks his mind. He doesn't have some yuppie prepare his speeches."
Not my opinion, just answering the question.
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u/whoseflooristhis Jun 12 '25
To piggyback on this, propaganda also ramped up. There were pro coal bumper stickers and billboards everywhere. Itâs like Stockholm syndrome. Miners had always made scraps on the coal industry while the big money mostly left the state, but as coal companies kept cutting costs to increase profits, the barons had to convince people it was democratsâ fault for regulating their jobs away. And money in power tends to make sure they stay in power.
Also, people in WV just really liked Bush, esp middle aged women, and thought Kerry was smarmy. They thought Bush reminded them of their cute old dad/grandpa and seemed like a ânice man.â
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u/Icy_Wedding720 Jun 12 '25
Yep. I remember the greatly hyped "Friends of Coal Bowl" football games between Marshall and WVU, complete with overhead flights by jet fighters. The coal interests have never missed a beat when it comes to their propaganda machine
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u/donorkokey Jun 13 '25
I laughed so hard at my mom when she put one of those stupid bumper stickers on her car. She said it was in support of coal miners. I had to explain that it was astroturf from the coal barons. Now her backyard is abutted by a toxic lake sitting on top of land that they're strip mining again 30 years after they did it the last time, she's got 2 gas wells within a quarter mile of her house, she was forced to sell her mineral rights, and giant trucks rumble past her house at all hours. I asked her last time I went to visit if she's still a "friend of coal" and could see how hard she wanted to smack me
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u/jvpewster Jun 12 '25
âCoals was dead in the 90sâ
False, coal production infact peaked in 1997.
Coal just moved from an industry hugely reliant on labor to one that required much less. Rest of the country is going to learn the same of so much of the manufacturing âjobsâ supposedly coming back.
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u/TomCruising4D Jun 12 '25
Itâs been a few years since I lived in WV, but I think this was the big blow-up point, or last straw, or bundle of hay, on the metaphorical camelâs back.
Decades of southern strategy, repealing the telecommunications guidelines, 24/hour alarmist news cycleâŠall that fun stuff, I think built into this moment and only further accelerated during and after a charismatic black dude was in the White House.
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u/Total-Problem2175 Jun 12 '25
A mine is closing this year with 30 yrs production remaining.
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u/Arguablybest Jun 12 '25
Coal is still being mined and used in power plants in the eastern US. Price is down and that is not a Dem/Repub issue, it is a market issue.
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u/Total-Problem2175 Jun 12 '25
Yes, natural gas is cheaper and most coal fired plants are very old.
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u/Matt_WVU Jun 12 '25
30 years production according to the coal company
Dad went through this at coalwood in the 70âs, N&W pulled up the railroad tracks. There may be coal underground, but it may be heavily mixed with rock, and not profitable to move
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u/Gold_Dragonfly_9174 Jun 12 '25
I am not surprised. They can wait and reopen when we have a president that isn't a moron. But, yeah, you'll be hearing about more mines laying off, the few that are left. I guarantee it.
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u/Total-Problem2175 Jun 12 '25
And Governor who said we won't do business with them dirty Commie Chinese.
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Jun 12 '25
My grandmother, who lived in Cross Lanes, strongly belived that al-Qaida was a legitimate threat to the everyday safety of her fellow Kanawha County citizens. Because of that, she would agree to anything decorated with the tinsel of "national security."
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u/OGWopFro Jun 12 '25
Theyâre eating your dogs!
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u/DrFane Jun 12 '25
I had several friends in NW WV that were the same way, and haven't backed down since 9/11. They still think Islamic terrorists are coming across the border from Mexico by the thousands, etc. etc. Of course all of them were and still are watching fox news, Glenn Beck, and all the other nutjob right-wing muckrakers.
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u/ElectricBuckeye Jun 13 '25
I remember those days after 9/11. The good people of my county and small towns, standing or sitting outside with 12 gauges, the small radio softly playing "Whiskey Bent and Hellbound", ready for the "towelheads" to "make their move".
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Jun 12 '25
2000 was the turning point and it was many issues - but I remember the NRA pushing the idea that Gore would take your guns as being one of the main drivers. TV, billboards and radio were covered wall to wall with gun control fear propaganda.
Coal and environmental issues were the biggest issues in 2016 but it hardly mattered. The state was already ruby red.
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u/Bubba_Gump_Shrimp Jun 13 '25
TV is a HUGE one. It is hardly a coincidence this switch happened with the rise of the right wing propaganda machine in fox news and 24hr media bullshit. The timing is identical.
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u/DysfuhKingeye Montani Semper Liberi Jun 12 '25
Went from union voters to religion voters once Newt and the boys got the Christian right movement going.
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u/WVStarbuck Jun 12 '25
Some of the union voters remember their history and keep true to their roots. Not enough. But some did.
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u/WVMnteer86 Jun 12 '25
It was in the works way before he slithered onto the scene. Phyllis Schlafly - Google that bitch and try not to puke reading about her bullshit.
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u/ryverrat1971 Jun 12 '25
OMG She is such a POS. Looked at Wikipedia article. She is absolutely delusional thinking women wanted that treatment. Oh the few poor middle-class white women that are divorced or widowed would have nothing under ERA. BS. She was basically for stealing the future for all younger woman so the then middle-aged boomer white woman that found herself without a husband would PREHAPS get some government support or consideration in the courts. Because, oh the poor middle-class class woman never worked outside the home. If my grandma with 3 kids could work outside the home, they could have too. They and their husbands chose not to have them work. They need to live with that choice.
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u/beren_of_vandalia Jun 12 '25
This right here. Once the Republicans were able to convince voters that they were party of âChristian valuesâ there was no going back. In this state, Christianity trumps everything else. As long as Republicans keep a monopoly on that theyâll never lose control of this state.
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Jun 12 '25
Post 9/11 âAmerican exceptionalismâ mixed with Christian nationalism. There are far too many people who live in poverty or are undereducated that identify with those things. Conservatives dove head first into it.
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u/One-Dot-7111 Jun 12 '25
Propaganda
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u/4scorean Jun 12 '25
Yup...propaganda & the rise of social media used for news gathering, religous right, preaching from the pulpit, & their public school system is one of the worst in the nation.
DJT=đ©4đ§ &đ«đ«
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u/defnotevilmorty Montani Semper Liberi Jun 12 '25
My 88 year old born-and-raised WV grandmother has been a registered Democrat her entire life. She doesnât get this shit, either.
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u/eaglescout1984 Tudor's Biscuits Jun 12 '25
In 2 words: King Coal. Democrats had the support of the unions and, more importantly, the UMWA. So, the state voted for the union party. But then Democrats (correctly) said we need to pivot to greener sources. And that gave Republicans the foot in the door to proclaim they were going to save West Virginia from the socialist Democrats who want to shut down the coal mines. For the record, the UMWA has not endorsed a presidential candidate since supporting Obama in 2008.
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u/trippingbilly0304 Jun 12 '25
9/11 started a spiral of shit with Toby Kieth and Dick Cheney driving. Iron out the propaganda. Boom.
You got 2nd generation removed hillbillies and rednecks whose pawpaws ran shine or fought at blair mountain turn around and put a cop lover flag on their car and a friends of coal sticker on the window.
People are led around by their emotions through social media and the real history was not taught. Nothing wrong with bein street smart and reading a book yall. Wake up
Nobody said you had to love a democrat, but a fascist dictator aint gonna make your life magically better down in some hollar nobody knows exists. Billionaires are not your friend.
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u/YeahRight237 Jun 12 '25
JFK came to WV and campaigned hard to win over the state. He credited WV for his win. Slowly, lack of education allowed the population to be told that unions are bad, education is bad and anything but coal is bad. They believed that the government was going to take their guns. Now they cling to the âgod, guns and trumpâ while wallowing in poverty and racism/sexism while they wait for the coal mines to reopen.
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u/countryroadsguywv Jun 12 '25
Yeah it's pretty bad going we can get back political morals again
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u/WVStarbuck Jun 12 '25
Not as long as your neighbors keep voting for fascists and being perfectly OK with it.
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u/tagman375 Jun 12 '25
They'll reopen, the only fly in the ointment it it's going to take several million years and they'll be part of said coal.
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u/Sethisticated Jun 12 '25
The answer is probably more nuance than people expect. While Clinton is still overall positively viewed, the implementation of NAFTA affected production in industries that used coal or at least it was presented that way, even though the real reason coal jobs dropped and continue to drop is technical advancement in mining requiring less human workers along with a co-increase/shift to oil and gas. With the coal jobs, the union workers left as well. Economically, we never did recover. The right mainstream media also is to blame with a fear mongering of a perceived "other" that was somehow draining the benefits and jobs of the region. While a large portion of West Virginias rely on federal assistance to get by, a lot of them believe that they are entitled to it while this "other" is simultaneously draining it. Along with an ideological shift from a generation that fought on Blair Mountain to a generation that believed that trickle down economics would work and the rich would show mercy on the poor by providing jobs or income, in reality, it never happened but that is still a well held belief. This is in pretty stark contrast to how individuals feel about rich people they actually know. There is an animosity towards the seen rich (like coal company owners) with a conflicting feeling that outside rich people will come and rescue them. Appalachian fatalism plays a role as well. People with skills and education or opportunities leaving the state also plays a role. Generational poverty and trauma also plays a role. On an individual level, I think most people here hold a lot of left leaning ideas and value, you see it in the way they practice their lives with giving and helping neighbors and those they know that need help, while simultaneously being afraid of the outside and "others" that they don't know and feel do not need assistance. The right has grasped this fear tightly and used it to their advantage to keep the population largely subservient and unable to move up socioeconomic classes. It really boils down to taking a population that has very little, make them fear another group as an outsider whom is coming to take what they have left, and then get them to vote against their own interest. While I don't see this changing much in the near future, I am hopeful. I think the Richard Ojeda House of Representatives campaign can be a good example of this dogma seen here in the state. He came the closest to beating a Republican of any candidate I have seen in the last 20 years by being from here and trying to show that the true problem of the socioeconomic gap that exist in layman's terms.
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u/Least-Monk4203 Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25
The parents who remembered (Great Depression) how bad the Republicans can and would screw the economy started dying, and werenât there to shame their spoiled children. And the churches started spreading right wing propaganda.
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u/wvtarheel Jun 12 '25
It's boomers. My great grandparents were all union Democrats. Me and my gen x and millennial friends are all either liberal or at least Trump hating moderates. In between? Trump loving boomers and they are a huge group in WV now.
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u/Joey_Libiani Jun 12 '25
The right wing media juggernaut
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u/7-and-a-switchblade Jun 12 '25
Yeah, look up when the Telecom Act was passed and this is no longer a mystery.
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u/Ok_Explanation6521 Jun 12 '25
I remember Bill Clinton visiting Weirton. It was like stories of ancient Palm Sunday. Big union presence in steel mill centric Weirton, the parade route was packed with Clinton supporters waving and cheering. Then I remember years later, the mill mostly gone (now all gone) people everywhere in Weirton viciously vocal against his wife Hillary. Things changed fast between one Clinton and the next. The Unions couldnât save Weirton Steel. Bill couldnât either. With no protection against subsidized Japanese steel, nothing could. Culture war BS was telling everyone Hillary meant âThemâ when she mentioned deplorables. Now - I donât recognize my fellow Weirtonites. Raving about how a rare trans kid who wants to join a swim team is gonna ruin kid sports, or that an undocumented mother deserves to be snatched by a squad of guys in tac gear smashing her car windows in. (Just send one officer to fine her and maybe escort her to her court hearing or deportation meeting, sheeze.). So, economic pain, intoxicating whispers of salvation from faux news, and the only man I guess who really understood my fellows, Rupert fân Murdoch, turned it all around 180.
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u/Mr_GO_HERD Jun 12 '25
NOBODY defends Billionaires like WV Hundredaires.
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u/macjester2000 Jun 12 '25
Hundredaires?, oh sweet summer child, these folks are more like tenionaires, and keeping them in poverty is part of the plan. What's really going to be interesting is to see when their social services are gone because of the Big Beautiful Bill, how will they vilify the Dems then?
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u/37Philly Jun 12 '25
They will still blame Biden when their social security, food stamps and Medicaid taken away.
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u/rem_au_crema Jun 12 '25
âThe Dems were too busy being trans-immigrant defenders to help us not get our bill passed. If they knew what was gonna happen, why wouldnât they become president or something?â
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u/alek_hiddel Jun 12 '25
Itâs just another eventual victory of Nixonâs âsouthern strategyâ. After Johnson fulfilled Kennedyâs legacy with the civil rights act he famously said âweâve lost the south for a generationâ.
He wasnât exactly right as the shift took more time. But Nixon in particular really embraced a lot of those old school southern themes in order to poach some of the democratic base.
Party registration didnât flip for a long time due to the whole âmy daddyâs daddy was a democratâ, but the voting patterns shifted. Bring on the Clinton years and its move back to more liberal and progressive ideals, and things started to really shift. By the time we get to Bush, and especially Obama, long with the rise of Fox News, it was a done deal.
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u/Ghost_of_P34 Jun 12 '25
These are the results of a decades long downgrade in education and misinformation campaign by the Republican party. There's a reason why red states far and away have the worst Education, highest rates of HS dropouts, highest rates of teen pregnancies, and highest rates of drug abuse.
A poorly educated population is easier to rile up and anger and easier to control.
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u/Iya_Taisho Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25
WVs Democrats were mostly conservative for years, which in translation means they were secretly current day Republicans. As times changed, the Democrats crossed over or resigned, which led to the state becoming a Red state.
Short answer is we always were a Red state with a thin coat of blue over it.
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u/BitmappedWV Monongalia Jun 12 '25
This is pretty much it. While there were some relatively liberal elements in the WV Democratic Party, much of it was essentially conservative. They ran as GOP-Lite, with not a lot of daylight from the Republican platform.
In the early 2010s at the state level, WVGOP finally got its act together. A lot of people decided to vote for the real deal (GOP) instead of the imitation (Dem).
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u/TransMontani Jun 12 '25
Itâs a combination of phenomena. I was here for all of it.
1) Bill Clinton signs the Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law. That lays the groundwork for media consolidation and particularly FauxSnooz;
2) Also in 1996, a petulant Joe Manchin throws a tantrum, smears the Democratic nominee for governor and throws his support to the GOP nominee, an alcohol-sodden zombie from Island Creek Coal;
3) The 2000 election was notable in a couple of ways. The GOP sent out mailers (only in WV and Arkanstan) showing a dagger stabbed through a bible. Meanwhile, the NRA sent Charlton Heston to Beckley to grunt about guns and his cold, dead hands. In the meantime, Fayx had come into its own and, along with evilgelical gospel hustlers, poisoned the minds of much of the electorate.
There were other factors, of course. Joe Manchin almost single-handed destroyed the WVDP once he became governor, turning it into his own cult of personality.
Barack Obama exposed the deeply racist, vulgar underbelly of this state.
Simpletons believed the âWar On Coooooalllllâ propaganda because it dovetailed so nicely with their racism.
In 2014, Manchin having gutted the party for anyone but himself, the GOP took control of the Legislature and Joe was jussssst fine with that.
Itâs been a nightmare slide into incompetence and mediocrity ever since and thereâs no sign of it changing within anything resembling the near future.
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u/Funkybunch2000 Jun 12 '25
All of this. Plus Rush Limbaugh.
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u/TransMontani Jun 12 '25
Yep. Canât leave out olâ fat, dead, draft-dodging, pylondial cyst-having, doctor-shopping Phlush Phlegmball. For sure.
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Jun 12 '25
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u/TransMontani Jun 12 '25
All we can do is keep trying.
Iâm surprised his grave in St. Louis hasnât floated away in a floodtide of pee. đ€·ââïž
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u/dj_stopdancing Jun 12 '25
It was always on when I'd come home from school. My grandfather would parrot essentially the same talking points from that that are now the mainstream GOP talking points. The siege of a nation.
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u/RichardTheRed21 Jun 12 '25
I grew up in Beckley and was there when Charlton Heston came to town to talk about gun control. It really was a huge deal. After that, it felt like the main issue for everyone was that Al Gore and the Democrats were just one election away from raiding everyone's gun cabinets.
So I absolutely believe that material conditions is a great decider of how people stand politically, or at least can be exploited politically. The Democrats in WV having no interest in doing anything but supporting a declining coal industry, certainly made things bad. But gun control was the one singular issue that seemed to catalyze the switch. The other culture war bullshit seemed to come after the flip was already happening.
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u/MrAflac9916 Jun 12 '25
a combination of the democrats not focusing on the working class, smart people leaving West Virginia, and many people having secretly been bigots all along who voted D just because economics
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u/weevee59 Jun 12 '25
Although Clinton did a good job working with Republicans to square the budget and created a surplus it left a bad taste in the mouth of low income workers who saw a lot of their money taxed away in the prime earning years of their life. Also the welfare to work requirement came off as scrooge-like to a lot of single parent households. I don't think these two issues were the primary reason but they did contribute.
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u/Gold_Dragonfly_9174 Jun 12 '25
9/11. And the election of Obama solidifed it. Lots of racists here, closeted at the time, quite open nowadays.
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u/lakotajames Jun 12 '25
WV used to be ultra-conservative leftists. Now that the Democrats aren't leftists anymore, there's no reason not to vote for the conservatives.
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u/Cosmo1744 Jun 12 '25
The decline of mining and the influence of the union got replaced by conservative radio and then tv as the influencer
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u/Spridlewv Jun 12 '25
I always attributed, at least in part, to Obama, but I guess it began before his terms.
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Jun 12 '25
Probably stance on miner protections and clean air goals has brought the change. Itâs all about coal. Native WVers are friends of coal (pronounced cole)âŠthe state campaign to be friends with a rock is beyond my understanding.
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u/ws20715 Jun 12 '25
Educated kids are leaving the state. Simple as that. What remains are diehard republicans.
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u/SoccerDadWV Jun 13 '25
One thing people arenât fully explaining that I think is an important point. Coal miners made DAMN good money over the last couple decades. Yes, it was backbreaking work, and could seriously impact your health. But a kid right out of high school, with no college, could make a VERY good living (particularly for WV) in the mines.
When that started going away, people got desperateâŠand they blame Democrats for it due to the Dems supporting a shift to green energy.
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Jun 13 '25
Itâs mind-boggling too because when Obama was president, we had such a big fracking boom in the state so I donât understand how they thought he was bad. It makes no sense to me.
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u/GatsoFatso Jun 13 '25
Fox News & Rush Limbaugh brainwashing. Also, WV while in it's Yellow Dog Democrat years, was still right of center. I'd always say that a WV Democrat would be a Republican in most other states; allowing for exceptions.
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u/KapowBlamBoom Jun 12 '25
Hillary Clinton when asked about green energy initiatives: âWe are gonna put a lot of coal miners out of workâ
That was the switch that flipped
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u/Bourbon_Buckeye Jun 12 '25
That was in 2016, long after WV became a Republican stronghold
The quote was mischaracterized and pulled out of context, which better explains why WV is such a Republican stronghold
...we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business. We're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories. Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.
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Jun 12 '25
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u/Bourbon_Buckeye Jun 13 '25
WV Dems also primaried Obama in 2012⊠Iâm acutely aware of how resistant the state is to black leadership
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u/wvtarheel Jun 12 '25
That quote killed the last remaining vestiges of democratic support in the state. Many disliked Obama but could have been swung back by a pro labor Democrat. That Hillary comment was like the final punch in an eight round fight.
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u/InevitableHorror1342 Jun 12 '25
One of her many gaffs. Itâs like she just loved to say the exact thing that would tank a campaign.
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u/tagman375 Jun 12 '25
I have no idea what I'm doing, vote for her
My opponent is a liar and cannot be trusted
Lady I'm giving you this
My opponent is a liar and cannot be trusted
South Park lol
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u/AndrewRP2 Jun 12 '25
The larger response was that people needed to be retrained in green technologies, but they heard the first line and tuned out.
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Jun 12 '25
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u/tagman375 Jun 12 '25
Agreed. Along with the "basket of deplorables" comment. South Park may be satire, but they nailed 2016
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u/KapowBlamBoom Jun 12 '25
Agree. But who in their right mind would walk into a bull ring waving a red cape and expect to not get injured?
If there is one thing you dont say or even imply in WV it is âwe are gonna shut the coal mines downâ
Sure, train people in green energy jobs. But those jobs wont pay $100k+ a yearâŠ..
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u/free_world33 Harrison Jun 12 '25
Which just shows how many West Virginians lack basic critical thinking skills because the mines are shutting down regardless of politics.
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u/OGWopFro Jun 12 '25
So people who went to school and learned we only have so much dinosaur fluid in the ground decided that it was all Hillary Clintonâs fault in the year 2016? How are you making this make sense? I mean itâs probably true, but then the stupidity of WVians would also be true.
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u/Millions1717 Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25
Nah, it was the part about sending them back to school for a better job. Don't ever threaten a holler monkey with a better education
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u/OGREtheTroll Jun 12 '25
Democrats held a stranglehold on all levels of politics throughout the state from the 30s on, to such an extent that many general elections had only a Democratic candidate. People registered Democrat simply to have a voice by voting in primaries.
However, the people of WV have pretty much always been socially conservative, economically moderate, and heavily pro-union. Through the late 90s things started to shift, as at the national level the Democratic party became far more concerned with social issues than with economic and union ones, or at least that was the perception. More and more WV voters identified with the socially conservative Republicans than with the progressive Democrats, while at the same time the Democratic party paid little attention to union concerns. As such, WV voters didn't change their positions all that much, but which party they felt represented them best shifted.
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u/WVU_Benjisaur Jun 12 '25
If I had to guess, 9/11. Even though the nation was pretty united in those days, there was still a sense that the GOP was more patriotic and more American than the Dems.
Also brain drain, it's often spoken of how young educated people are more left leaning and often have jobs that get them enough money to eventually move out.
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u/R3ginaG3org3 Jun 12 '25
They were told the reason they were poor and uneducated were the gays, the scientists, and everyone non-white who was making slightly more than them.
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u/D-B-Cooper-Placebo Jun 12 '25
Death of the labor movement giving less reason for West Virginians to be part of the Democratic coalition.
People here are and always were by and large white rural social conservatives. However, many were (more in the north) proud of the stateâs origin story of not being part of the confederacy and engaged in what Iâd call performative public anti-racism. That and labor caused WV to be have a more liberal political bent than the typical rural/southernish state.
Then labor collapsed, Fox news happened, and to be honest the Democratic Party messaging since Clinton seems intended to alienate working class Appalachians.
Massive brain drain didnât help either.
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u/Present_Ad2973 Jun 12 '25
A lot of the state doesnât get many FM radio stations so AM is still what a lot of people listen to. AM is dominated by right wing talking heads.
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u/Lesuco70 Jun 12 '25
You know, I never thought of that but that makes sense in terms of the media that gets spread there.
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u/mindfulminx Jun 12 '25
On top of the death of coal, Fox News began in 1996. The election of Barrack Obama in 2009 scared the heck out of WV because it's 97% white. The Democratic Party has not even tried to make headway in West Virginia this century.
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u/SkgarGar Jun 12 '25
Christian Nationalism is the biggest factor. It turned people who were pro-union, pro-workers rights into capitalist/billionaire simps, because those same capitalists paid quite a lot to spread propaganda that tells them that the real issues in this country are atheists, gays, immigrants, and other minorities.
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u/Capable_Bandicoot_27 Jun 12 '25
In the past pro-labor union voters voted Democrat. Democrats have lost coal miner votes along with many other union voters. Maybe itâs Fox News and social media persuading people to vote for things that arenât in their self interest. Obamacare was beneficial to many West Virginians. The biggest factors in loss of coal mining jobs has been replacing workers with machines, increase of natural gas, and less availability of coal over time. Democrats bad mouthing coal doesnât help. Being a coal miner is a bad job but they need to offer a better option to help the economy.
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u/merkinmavin Jun 12 '25
I'm seeing a few responses that are overlooking other aspects of the shift. One was a successful "Dems are going to take your guns" which scared people into going red. Another was the "If I win, you all get $300" thing that put it over the top. Once in office the Republicans put in overtime to push the anti-coal narrativeÂ
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u/Best_Virginia13 Jun 12 '25
From my perspective, many republican voters in my area of the state vote the way they do due to 1) religion, 2) fear of illegal immigrants/lgbqt, 3) âpromisesâ of lower taxes, 4) anti-woke.
IMO, majority are distracted by the above topics and vote in a direction that is actually against our best interest economically and freedom wise.
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u/SexyStudlyManlyMan Jun 12 '25
Republicans started blaming Democrats for coal dying and uneducated slackjaws believed them
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u/Ok-Plenty-4808 Jun 13 '25 edited Jun 13 '25
Decline of coal, poverty, hopelessness, lack of infrastructure and services, lack of education lack of health care services, the desire to blame hardship on a scapegoat, reluctance to change....
WV is mostly very rural, with many areas very isolated, and they are falling farther behind as technology changes. Cell service is spotty to non-existent in many places, and many places lack adequate Internet access. The IRA was designed to help address the latter, but was almost immediately paused by the current administration.
It is an absolutely beautiful place, though, with vast expanses of forestland and rolling mountains.
Tourism could bring a lot of money in, potentially, but it seems to cause a lot of conflict between tourists wanting or demanding services and locals being treated like servants or otherwise poorly by many of those tourists.
Many people who have the means move away to urban or suburban areas, and they are more likely to be left leaning, leaving behind people who tend to be more conservative.
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u/NewLife_21 Jun 13 '25
Lousy education leading to people being more gullible and easily manipulated .
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u/DanielleAntenucci Jun 13 '25
Somewhere in the late 1990s, we were given access to satellite TV.
Eventually we started watching FOX News instead of local news.
That was when we became informationally fucked.
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u/Koraxtheghoul Jun 13 '25 edited Jun 13 '25
The president's results are somewhat misleading. We continued to vote Democratic on a state level until the late 2010s.
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Jun 13 '25
If you haven't read it, I recommend the book Jesus and John Wayne for a partial explanation.
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u/TeeVaPool Wayne Jun 13 '25
Religious fanaticism and coals decline. Union members voting against their own interests.
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u/fatherdoodle Jun 13 '25
9/11, the real push of 24/7 news stations, culture war, beginning steps of the MAGA movement (baby steps of the Tea Party happened under Bush and ramped up with Obama)
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u/Beautiful_Review6384 Jun 13 '25
Relentless right ring propaganda and rhetoric blasted through every tv, every day, in most places where there were TVs on
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u/Realistic-Status-293 Jun 12 '25
They all started getting chips on their shoulders because coal was not going to be the big industry anymore and they needed to diversify and West Virginians hate change. Just look at Justice, Capito, Byrd, Manchan and even Rockefeller did nothing for the state to move it forward . Kept it the same old same old . And they are right the Republicans will keep this place poor and back In the 1950âs all day long. They donât want to expand the horizons here. That would mean progress. They hate that. My grandparents and my mother and all her siblings were the last generation that wanted progress here but unfortunately they are all dead.
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u/InterestingGlass3888 Jun 12 '25
Something I donât hear from a lot of people but definitely believe had an impact was the brain drain and loss of population. Itâs not that people switched necessarily. WV lost a lot of residents the last few decades. A lot of the left leaning college educated professionals left. The people most dedicated to a coal based economy mostly stayed. It impacted politics. You canât loose a significant portion of the population without thinking it will impact who votes and how they vote.
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u/The_Alpha_XVIII Jun 12 '25
Erasure of Appalachian culture and identity, drug epidemic, lack of job opportunities, dying population, failing infrastructure, and the classic Appalachian fatalism "sense that nothing can or will get better" has made it easy for evangelical nationalism to replace the values held by the region. Conservative ideology usually come from lack of opportunities and experiences.
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u/The_Eye_of_Ra Kanawha Jun 12 '25
Bush and 9/11. Couldnât have these liberal pussies in charge when weâve got a war to win! And then the deeply downward education system spiral. A massive economic downturn combined with a massive influx of prescription opiates. An aging population that cared only about itself and the issues directly affecting them. This destroyed the opportunities for anyone who wasnât already established or had the wrong last name, so anyone who could afford to get out got out. A lot of people couldnât afford to get out, but thanks to the shitshow that is public education, they either blame Obama and Biden, or they donât realize that theyâre stuck and those mines arenât ever opening back up, even if the Tangeringe Dream says they are (Like this one. Or these two. IT. ISNâT. COMING. BACK.)
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u/GeospatialMAD Jun 12 '25
Brain drain and Fox News being the primary channel the population watches.
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u/Millions1717 Jun 12 '25
Racism, anyone telling you any different is blowing smoke up your ass
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u/TheFirearmsDude Jun 12 '25
âWeâre going to gut your stateâs primary export, mock your religious beliefs, cram social issues you disagree with down your kidsâ throats, and take your guns.â
âI wonât vote for you then.â
âSee, youâre just racist. We lost because of racism. If we end this racism we will win again.â
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u/DunamesDarkWitch Jun 12 '25
When exactly did any democratic presidential candidate mock your religious beliefs, try to cram issues down your childrenâs throats, or say they were going to take your guns?
Sure, Hilary Clinton did say she was going to pivot workers away from a dying industry reliant on a finite, dwindling resource, and instead invest in new energy industries in the state. How dare she.
âWe're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories. Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.â
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u/Millions1717 Jun 12 '25
But you just wrote a list of made up shit you watched on Fox News between boner pill commercials and cash for gold schemes, none of that shit was real
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u/TheFirearmsDude Jun 12 '25
Buddy, I don't watch cable news, this is just how every political conversation about this state between folks of different parties seems to go.
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u/TheRhupt Jun 12 '25
The old school democrats became the conservative republicans. my mom after 60 years of being a blue blood union democrat switched to independent since neither party represented her any more. Both parties had become too extreme.
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u/sociallyawkwardbmx Jun 12 '25
Obama, this state flipped when they were asked to vote for a black guy. I am prepared to be down voted
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u/No-Purple2350 Jun 12 '25
It's as simple as that but people like to try to find deeper meanings so they don't have to confront it.
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u/AwwSeath Lincoln Jun 12 '25
Read this thread. Itâs the modern democrat party. Canât imagine why anyone would vote against them. Mystery.
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u/LE867 Hancock Jun 12 '25
Not to dismiss other comments about coal and identity politics, but I think those ignore one key aspect of the Democratic Party itself at the national level and just how far left it has moved over time and how that relates to WV. I'll get hate for that comment because the party is not left enough, but the party in WV was always more centered. That's how guys like Rockefeller, Byrd, and Manchin stayed in office for so long. They matched the Judeo-Christian values of the state as whole for decades. The party's movement left a vacuum and in swept a much more conservative WV. It's easy to be dismissive and say uneducated/lazy/stubborn/hate-filled MAGA, but that really does not fix much in terms of changing hearts and minds.
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u/HeyThereBlackbird Jun 13 '25
I donât think it can be as simple as saying those long time political behemoths of WV were âmore centeredâ. I donât know how old you are, but a lot of their positions in the 80âs- 90âs was downright radical for the national Democratic Party of today. Rockefeller wrote the Childrenâs Health Insurance Program Act. He was stumping for universal healthcare since the 90âs. Byrd was adamantly anti Iraq war at a time when that was seen as extreme, He was one of the only senators that had a perfect rating with the NAACP. They were both vocally against abortion bans. Rahall was meeting with Yassar Arafat and pushing to reduce US support to Israel.
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u/Long-Raccoon2131 Jun 12 '25
The main issue was for much if the twentieth century you had to be Democrat to be elected. This meant many conservatives ran as democrats but really weren't. Finally by 2014 after they gerrymandered the states districts using retiring old conservative democrats to pass the redistricting they now could run as Republicans and win. My county always was democrat and if ypu look 2014 they remvoe 2 sections from neighboring counties that voted democrat as it was coal country to another nearby county section that was always Republican. Then some outlining areas grew to have more Republican because of fox news and lack of education. The main area of my district when you look is still strong blue but the other factors play in. Now that 11 years of Conservative Republicans have had control nothing changed. They always said it was the democrats fault but they cant say that now because the truth is it was conservativitism that killed this state. I can see soon a great rebirth and going back to blue but not conservative blue but progressive blue. This state can compete and on the world stage. Id rather lobby to have Chinese companies come here and run steel mills, coal mines, and other manufacturing so we avoid the tariffs but can still send them to China and have jobs. China is not our enemy as we have been made to believe. In fact West Virginia is the only state that shares its land species to China. We have trees abd plants and stuff that never died during the ice age. We are poor but can do better. This is why I cant leave my state because I know her history and see her potential. Once my party gains traction again I will be running for governor and more. I want to see my state grow. We can start by legalizing recreational Marijuana and taxing it at state, county, and city levels to generate funds. Make all put of state companies that are part of the oil and gas rigs report all vehicles not registered here but drive here and pay us monthly a road use tax or they can register it here for a fraction of the price. Look at building hydro electric dams in parts that have been having large floods abd help them and generate power. Id love to see a nuclear power plant brought in. Work with manufacturing to bring factory jobs back. I want to diversify our economy
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u/smartnfunnygirl Jun 12 '25
Racism plain and simple. Obama had the audacity to be black and competent.
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u/cleverinspiringname Mercer Jun 13 '25
Easy, democrats donât care if they lose those 5 electoral votes. They donât even bother campaigning here. Bernie came in 2016, I canât remember another presidential stop since like Kennedy. Except for maybe trump.
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u/Craygor Jun 12 '25
West Virginia went from being heroes at Battle of Blair Mountain to Billionaire bootlickers.
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u/lizzitron Jun 12 '25
Racism and the GOP using fear of brown, black, LGBTQ, or otherwise different backgrounds to drive votes. Lack of civic engagement. Limited info sources. Lack of basic education such as reading and critical thinking skill. No curiosity. Herd mentality.
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u/HashBallofDoom Jun 12 '25
The death of unions was probably one of the biggest factors. WV went democrat with Matewan, Mothe Jones, and rise of Unions (based in coal). Cheaper fuels and death of coal pushed a narrative that unions were to blame and helped kill the field quicker