It's a slow grind, but WV is getting there. It may have had the highest margins of Trump support of anywhere in the country but it's still a state that exemplified the working-class democrat coalition of 50 years ago and those ancestral democrats still vote democrat. We were still voting democrats into the governors mansion in '16 and both Manchin and Byrd where democrats that are beloved for what they did to help the state, Manchin as Governor and Byrd in the Senate. The tide is breaking, though. Jim Justice left the Democrats and Manchin has broken ranks on key issues over the last four years, even if he did let himself get beaten back into line. I think Manchin either swaps parties in the next four years or this is his last term, but we'll see.
It's a slow grind, but WV is getting there. It may have had the highest margins of Trump support of anywhere in the country but it's still a state that exemplified the working-class democrat coalition of 50 years ago and those ancestral democrats still vote democrat. We were still voting democrats into the governors mansion in '16 and both Manchin and Byrd where democrats that are beloved for what they did to help the state, Manchin as Governor and Byrd in the Senate. The tide is breaking, though. Jim Justice left the Democrats and Manchin has broken ranks on key issues over the last four years, even if he did let himself get beaten back into line. I think Manchin either swaps parties in the next four years or this is his last term, but we'll see.