mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
What about “West Virginia used to be a solid blue state until the early aughts” was incorrect in my post?Not true. West Virginia is socially conservative and they just shifted over to the socially conservative party (the Republicans) as politics became more polarized after the 1990s....at least on a national level.
Democrats until 4-5 years ago still did decent in WV on a statewide but non-presidential level (Jay Rockefeller, Robert Byrd, Bob Wise, Earl Ray Tomblin, Joe Manchin, etc).
Byrd and Manchin were senators there and they didn’t have many Republican Congress members until the aughts.
Coal died and they got no alternatives but overt racism. Labor unions dominated that state and Dems worked with unions.