West Virginia is Not a Republican State!
9:11 pm October 3rd, 2008I know Obama’s not likely to win West Virginia this year, and I know his campaign’s choice to spend most of their resources in more closely contested states (and states with more electoral votes!) is rational, but it still bugs me when my friends refer to my home state as hopelessly conservative. “Oh, West Virginia? They’re never going to vote for Obama!” Oh really?
West Virginia is a traditionally Democratic state! It’s voted Democratic six times in the last ten presidental elections, while Indiana — which has been considered a “swing state” this election for a while — voted Republican in all ten. Not to mention WV’s long tradition of organized labor, its Democratic governor recently elected with almost twice the votes of his Republican opponent, and its two-out-of-three Democratic representatives.
Plus, who could forget WV’s two long-serving Democratic senators (who do so much for the state!)*? Byrd has never lost an election, Rockefeller is expected to be re-elected by a wide margin this year).
Fortunately, as polls swing ever further toward Obama, I’m getting somewhat vindicated on this issue; Real Clear Politics just pulled WV into the toss-up column, and poll analyst and fellow U of C alum Nate Silver has a post up this week about the state’s chances in the general election.
* as an almost-native of West “by Robert C. Byrd” Virginia, I have to say that I am down with pork. I don’t claim to be a fiscal conservative! I’ve seen how some of Byrd’s projects have brought much-needed jobs and infrastructure to a state that generally has too little of both.
2 Comments to “West Virginia is Not a Republican State!”
Ethan Stanislawski says:
October 30th, 2008 at 9:25 am
The problem is the definition of Democrat in West Virginia is skewed: in the primary, where Obama got creamed, the West Virginia democrats were being racist and harping on his middle name. Of course, Terrell McSweeny, who may be the next Senator from West Virginia, is a family friend, so hopefully that will change soon.
Clara says:
October 30th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
That’s the thing, though. Voting for Clinton over Obama in the primary doesn’t make a state Republican (see: New York, California)! Since Obama and Clinton have nearly identical policy positions, I don’t see how it makes any sense at all to say something about a state’s liberalism/conservatism based on who won the primary there.
And while I’m not denying that there are West Virginians who are suspicious of Obama because of his race, I think that racism there during the primary was way overblown in the media. My main gripe is that people talk about WV as though it were as conservative as someplace like Utah, when even a cursory look at the facts shows that that’s just not true.
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