Compare/contrast American Presidential elections

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As a general rule, I do not predict trends. Who would have thought after the 1996 Presidential election that that would be the last election in which a Democratic nominee would win any one of Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, or West Virginia?

Let's take a look at West Virginia. This is how the state looked in 1980... forty years ago...



West Virginia voted against Ronald Reagan by 4% in a year in which Reagan won 44 states. Voting on the losing side against a President who gets nearly 500 electoral votes is a strong indication that the state is extremely partisan in its orientation. That is when the United Mine Workers could reliably get out the vote for Democrats on 'labor' issues because high wages in jobs that don't require college degrees and long commutes. Democratic pols didn't have to spend much on public works, education, or even public health (the miners and their families had good insurance thanks to union contracts).

Those jobs are mostly gone. The coal seams are largely worked out, and the coal that can be minded from the surface requires far fewer workers. The United Mine Workers Union can no longer turn out the votes of coal miners and their families.  The state was never rich, but Democrats left the state with few opportunities other than mining... and bad roads, bad schools, and bad public health.

Here's the last election in which a Democratic nominee would win West Virginia:

 

... and 2020:



Back in 1996, if someone showed a map of West Virginia that looked like the last one as a prospect for 2020, you might be asking whether the Democratic Party were dying. It most certainly is.. in West Virginia.

It is West Virginia that has changed, and oh has it changed!