20 years ago West Virginia was a blue state

[standingtall]

How are we ever going to compete in that state again if our attitude is Democrats can vote for whatever the republican voters of that state want? We will never be able to persuade them if we wont stand up for our values and no this not purity. There is a big difference between being unhappy over a few little things, than not wanting those who are suppose to be our allies to constantly side with our enemies.

[Awsi Dooger]

1. I remember Gore being ripped for losing that state

Lots of my friends in Las Vegas betting pools were mocking him for it, as if it should have been a cinch. But I think the indications were there that the state had shifted. The polling was lousy. Gore may have stopped campaigning there late.

Last time I checked, West Virginia had 47% conservatives to only 16% liberals. That means it is long gone from a presidential standpoint. There is no margin of victory in the national popular vote that could drag West Virginia along.

Gaining Virginia while losing West Virginia was more than a fair swap from an electoral standpoint, if you want to look at it that way.

[standingtall]

4. Still gets same amount of senators Virginia does

If 47% identify as conservative and 16% identify then that means there are 37% percent that identify as neither. So there is an open there if we were to commit to a long term strategy to flip that state. Maybe we cannot flip in one election cycle but over several if we commit to it,and the same could be said of some other red states as well.

[Awsi Dooger]

10. The nation is 36% conservative 27% liberal and the rest moderate

The best way to define and identify a swing state is one that mirrors those numbers.

West Virginia is 10% the wrong way in both categories. That's why I say it is out of reach.

If we carry West Virginia then it's almost a national sweep like Reagan in 1984.

[standingtall]

14. Im more concerned with winning the senate seats there

5 electoral votes doesn't even make a dent and I reject that the nation is 36% conservative and %27 liberal

[shanny]

24. I dispute those figures too

Based on policy questions and not labels the country is at least center-left (pukes would call it far left); based on party affiliation there are fewer Rs than Ds and more independents than either (about 24-ish to 30-ish to 40+ respectively).

[oberliner]

31. But 8 fewer House members

7 Ds and 4 Rs for Virginia House members.

West Virginia has 3 House members - all Republicans.

[ProudDem314]

7. If Gore would of just won New Hampshire he would of been president

Yeah, that tiny little New England state. Since then, New Hampshire has voted for every Democratic candidate since then. I know everyone will remember Florida, but there were so many opportunities else where that he blew (New Hampshire, his home state of Tennessee, Ohio (he gave on that state way too soon), and even my home state of Missouri. Florida would not have mattered had he took one of those states.

[JI7]

11. new hampshire was one of the states targeted by those who said no difference

between bush and gore.

[Blue_true]

22. Exactly. But that was conveniently ignored as Gore was pilloried for perceived shortcomings. nt

[JI7]

26. it probably also meant some people didn't think Bush was as bad

if he was like Gore.

so people who didn't hate Gore or Bush but are not very politically partisan and "which way the wind goes" types would think "we had democrats for 8 years so maybe we should change things up a bit" while still thinking things will be mostly the same .

[MichMan]

32. If only Al Gore would have won his home state of Tennessee....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

34. Tennessee has changed. Trump was humiliated in his home state.

[MichMan]

37. In just 8 years?

He was elected multiple times as a Tennessee Senator before he was VP with a healthy margin of the votes.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

38. Haven't subsequent presidential elections demonstrated how much Tennessee has changed ?

Mitt Romney was the former governor of Massachusetts and he lost it by twenty three points to Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election.

[MichMan]

39. That's true

[JI7]

2. and California had Reagan and Nixon and passed anti immigration law. things don't always stay the

same.

and what do you mean by "we" and "our" . it's the fucking democrats in west virginia that vote for their candidates.

it was the fucking DEMOCRATS in west virginia where almost half of them voted for a fucking prison inmate over Obama in the democratic primary in 2012.

the democrats in west virginia are very right wing leaning.

[standingtall]

5. It was primary in which the candidate had no chance in winning

Most Democrats probably didn't even bother to vote in that primary, because it was meaningless.

[JI7]

8. huh ? why did almost half the democrats vote for a prison inmate over Obama ?

[standingtall]

15. I do not believe half of registerd Democrats in the state voted for an inmate over Obama

Or is the truth that about half the voters that showed up in a totally useless symbolic primary voted for an inmate over Obama who would've been on the ballot there even if he lost the primary.

[JI7]

16. sorry, but these are democratic voters . it says something that almost half voted for a prison

inmate over Obama even if it was symbolic.

it shows how right wing the state is . and why so many of them voted for the scum filth Trump.

[standingtall]

17. West Virginia has a race problem that is not in dispute

but it is not accurate to say half of them voted for an inmate over Obama. There was no incentive for anyone to show up and vote in that primary except for those that were angry that a black man was President. Still doesn't mean we should give up on that state. We have been doing that and look where we are. Republicans have the house,senate,presidency and supreme court. As well as about 75% of the governorships and state legislators.

[JI7]

19. we didn't give up. they decided opposition to civil rights was more important than economic issues

the issues are clearly laid out.

Trump appealed to their bigotry and it's why they continue to support them even if their economic situation has gotten worse under Trump.

they have the freedom to make different decisions.

[Blue_true]

28. Did you even listen? Half of the people that showed up to vote.

Most democrats there assumed and accepted that President Obama would be the nominee and stayed home, the protest voters showed up in large numbers.

I live in Florida, a state that is hanging onto coal for power plants (although declining usage is taking place). Our power bills are some of the highest rates in the nation. It is nothing to see a household with a $300-$400 monthly power bill during the summer. Our water is increasingly being polluted by unwise or outright thoughtless development. Eventually that will matter to people and voters appear to be getting wise to people like Rick Scott (even though the gunhumpers here relish him).

[OhioBlue]

3. West Virginia is different. It wasn't a blue State because it was liberal.

It had or has populist leanings. Meaning, they are not liberal in the sense that they support same sex couples, affirmative action or abortion rights. They were blue because they have a lot of poverty and were New Deal Democrats. Honestly, Manchin does vote for what that State's democratic voters want. I have an uncle in WV that I just absolutely love. He has helped my family in ways that I cannot even explain. He is a Dem and so smart and intuitive about economic issues, however he is also a strong Baptist that has caused me to leave a room in tears over how he views same sex couples. The parties have changed, allegiances have changed. Unions have been decimated. The WV electorate has changed.

[standingtall]

6. Might not be able to shift their sentiments over same sex couples but

but we could persuade them that voting for Democrats for their own economic self preservation is more important.

[JI7]

9. they already know the issues. if they prefer to vote to take away rights from lgbt

they are to blame.

[SoCalDem]

12. when unions get gutted, things change

and the change for the worst is often blamed on the wrong people.. that's the dilemma ..

talk radio/newspaper consolidation and the bleakness of smalltown USA messes with people's heads and they fall prey to flimflam

[bluestarone]

36. This is soooo true!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Awsi Dooger]

13. I remember reading about that

West Virginia was blue until the coal mining industry collapsed and therefore the number of union members. Once social issues were at forefront the politics shifted quickly.

[Hortensis]

18. Bingo. Conservative "blue" was always conservative red.

Half of America seemingly has no idea now that the rabidly conservative south was once solidly Democrat and is still partly. Southern pro-slavery and frontier conservatives flooded into the liberal party of the 1820s-30s, took over and split off, and basically destroyed their new party. They couldn't see paying for education among other things.

After losing the Civil War, the Democratic Party was moribund for the rest of the century, while the Republican Party grew into two giant warring factions, the progressive liberals and conservatives and the anti-government business conservatives. Eventually, as the latter were winning out over the former, the progressives moved to and took over the Democratic Party to be the successor of what Madison and Jefferson had established, its fervent anti-Yankee conservatives unable to stop them and remaining until the civil rights act of 1964 made even the northeastern business Yankees look preferable.

But to this day, some regions still have large numbers of conservatives registered Democrat, like WV. Doesn't make them liberal any more than registering Republican would create a dramatic personality change in someone here.

[JI7]

20. that's why Kim Davis was a registered Democrat and Kentucky had(maybe still has) more registered

democrats than republicans. although they had been voting republican for president for years now.

but the registrations go back to the days before civil rights.

[Hortensis]

25. :) Tradition! Democrat means something very different to them.

If people think in terms of political personality and orientation, rather than often deceptive party labels and colors, everything becomes a lot clearer. And people become a lot harder to fool.

Manchin's votes are not evidence of Democratic Party corruption or lack of principle. He's a fairly moderate conservative elected from a sometimes moderately, sometimes strongly conservative state where lots of those types still call themselves Democrats.

[Blue_true]

21. West Virginia is screwed for the shorterm.

They will continue to vote for republicans who want clean coal. But the rest of the world will keep going away from coal for economic reason mostly. Jobs in WV will continue to decline and despair will deepend. They won't have a democratic President to blame their predicament on. People say that the voters there are racist, while some are, most are simply mixed up about where their future best interests lay.

Coal is going away, nothing will stop that. The state has several good universities and great natural beauty. True leaders would develop a Research Triangle model that transformed North Carolina, but if people keep electing republicans that won't happen. Hillary told them the truth and presented a reasonable plan for their future, they overwhelmingly rejected her. We need to just focus on other things and let them suffer, maybe they come to their senses, maybe not. We get much more payback by turning Florida and Georgia solid blue, turning North Carolina reliably blue and holding a state like Virginia. There is no upside other than humane ones for focusing on West Virginia.

[quadtetra]

23. WV was a Dixiecrat type state, it was never Blue!

Saying WV was a Blue State is sort of like saying many Southern States were Blue States because they voted for Democrats for POTUS and other offices for a time.

Of course those Southern states were never really Blue States even when they voted for Democrats. They were Dixicrat States and voted for Dixiecrats.

The same thing is more or less true of WV. It's not exactly like Dixiecrat States but it resembled them a lot more than true Blue States.

[standingtall]

27. By that logic there never was a blue state before 2000

for it's time when it was a democratic stronghold it was a blue state compared to the rest of the country. The country has moved to the left on social issues while West Virginia failed to follow. West Virginia was an economic progressive state and therefore a blue state.

[Squinch]

29. In the short term, we don't need to compete in that state. We NEED a Democratic Senator from

that state so we gain a majority in Congress. THEN we can do what we need to do to compete in that state.

[bronxiteforever]

30. +100

[themaguffin]

33. I believe that Democrats can still compete there. It won't be easy though.

[Wounded Bear]

35. When the unions died, we lost a lot of blue collar support...

Reagan started the trend of killing of unions, Repubs have continued that.