Bernie Sanders Crushing Hillary Clinton In Heart Of Coal Mining Country — Will He Survive To Claim West Virginia?
Bernie Sanders, in a surprising new poll this week, roared to an astonishing lead over Hillary Clinton in an area where Clinton was thought to have a stronghold of support, the heart of coal mining country — West Virgina. The results of the West Virginia Metro News/Repass Research poll released on Monday show that Sanders, who has built his own base of reliable voters among the white working class, continues to hold that base even in an area where his position on environmental regulations and climate change seems like it should make him unpopular.
In the 2008 West Virginia Primary, Hillary Clinton easily won over those white, working class voters, defeating then-Senator Barack Obama winning two of every three Democratic votes, 67 percent, to just under 26 percent for Obama, who of course became the eventual Democratic nominee.
One possible cautionary note about the new West Virginia poll — even though it was released after Nevada caucus in which Clinton seems to have regained “momentum” in the race, it was completed before that contest, and of course before the South Carolina primary coming up on Saturday, and which Clinton is expected to win by a sizable margin, as she leads by double-digits, and no fewer than 18 percentage points, in each of eight major polls taken there this month.
In the following video, Bernie Sanders supporters Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola of the popular online news program The Young Turks attempt to debunk the idea of Hillary Clinton’s “momentum.”
Whether the results of the Nevada and South Carolina contests will cut into the support for Bernie Sanders in the Appalachian coal mining country won’t be known until further polling is conducted in West Virginia.
The Democratic primary in that state does not come around until May 10, meaning Sanders must not only tap into but expand his base beyond that white, working class support — and beyond his base among young voters between the ages of 18 and 34 — to win some primaries and stay alive in the race until then.
But the West Virginia poll, the first conducted in the state this year, holds some encouraging signs for Sanders in his effort to reach past his narrow core of reliable supporters. In West Virginia, Sanders leads every age group, according to the Metro News poll. In fact, with every group except senior citizens, Sanders polled at higher than 50 percent.
Amazingly, Bernie Sanders also leads among West Virginia Democrats age 65 and over, though by a plurality, not a majority, garnering 43 percent senior support in the poll, compared to 36 for Hillary Clinton.
But Bernie Sanders faces a steep mountain to climb just to get to May 10 without finding himself completely buried in the race.
Though his loss in South Carolina appears assured, Sanders may have some hope on Super Tuesday, March 1, even though the odds appear heavily against him there as well.
“Based on the polling so far, Sanders is coming up short of where he needs to be in most Super Tuesday states, along with major industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania where he’ll need to run neck and neck with Clinton later on,” wrote polling analyst Nate Silver of the election-predicting site FiveThirtyEight, in an essay published on the site Thursday.
According to Silver, to survive with a realistic chance at the nomination after Super Tuesday in which 11 states hold Democratic primaries or caucuses, Sanders must win the March 1 states of Vermont, Minnesota, Colorado, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
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Of those, only Vermont, Sanders home state, and neighboring Massachusetts appear to be in the bag for Sanders five days ahead of the balloting.
Even in Massachusetts, however, Sanders is running behind where Silver says that, based on the state’s demographics, he should be, statistically.
Polling has been scant in Minnesota and Colorado, though conventional wisdom would suggest that the liberal and largely white composition of the Democratic electorate in those states should put them in Sanders column. Surprisingly, in Oklahoma, Sanders is running neck-and-neck with Hillary Clinton, trailing by only 2.6 points in the FiveThirtyEight average.
Unfortunately for Bernie Sanders, in the other six Super Tuesday states — including Texas with its 252 delegates — Hillary Clinton holds what appear to be insurmountable leads.
[Featured Photo By Bill Pugliano / Getty Images]
