Posted on 05/11/2016 7:32:46 AM PDT by MaxistheBest
Bernie Sanders won the state's primary over Hillary Clinton, and while the delegates he collects will do nothing to knock the front-runner off her glide path to the Democratic nomination, it will give the insurgent candidate a much-needed shot of adrenaline during what could be a good month for him.
That part was expected. The rest was not.
West Virginia, like other Southern and Appalachian states, is at the tail end of a long transition away from Democratic Party, which once ruled the South, to the GOP, the natural ideological home of its conservative voters.
Democratic voters still technically outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one in the Mountain State, even though it hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 20 years, and isn't likely to again for the foreseeable future.
Just over half — 51 percent — of West Virginia voters are registered Democrats, while just 29 percent are registered Republicans, according to data released by the secretary of state's office. Another 17.6 percent of voters are independents.
Many of those Democrats, however, behave like Republicans, which helps explain why Donald Trump voters played a key role in putting Sanders over the top Tuesday.
A third of those who voted in West Virginia's Democratic primary say they plan to back Trump in November, according to NBC News exit polls. Sanders won those voters by a wide margin.
In fact, 39 percent of Sanders voters said they would vote for Trump over Sanders in the fall. For Clinton, nine percent of her voters say they plan to come out for Trump in the general election.
West Virginia has an open primary, meaning independents can vote in the Democratic contest. With the GOP nomination wrapped up, it's possible mischievous Trump supporters sought to damage Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, by voting for Sanders.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
OH....so it’s not that Hillary is an awful candidate, and that Democrats don’t like her. It’s those EEEEEEVIL Trump supporters engaging in Operation Chaos to plant mines in the path of the Future Queen.
THIS is why we HATE the MEDIA!
MSNBC did not say it was an operation chaos - they said there was an election for governor and since they were there they decided to vote - they wanted to vote for Trump but he was on an earlier GOP only ballot so they voted for Bernie because they hate Hillary so much. They would have voted for Trump if he was on that ballot.
Tennessee is very Republican but our Democrats are, for the most part, very conservative. If the Democrats keep trending so far to the left I expect to see more of them vote Republican. Some already have been for the last few years. My husband was a Democrat until GW’s first term. That was when he started voting Republican and said he can’t see himself ever supporting another Democrat.
My family have all been Republicans. When my parents married in 1952 my mom was an Ohio Democrat and Dad was a Southern Republican. She couldn’t drive and Dad wouldn’t let her vote if she wouldn’t vote Republican. After a while she saw the light and said she can’t imagine EVER supporting another Democrat.
Although Rush claims to have invented this strategy, in fact it is common for campaigns to send their people out to vote for another candidate to weaken the front runner of the opposite party. My husband plans to vote for Bernie in the primary, Trump is the general. I’ll be voting for Trump in both - unless someone tells me a better strategy.
Keep Bern obnoxious by voting for him if you must. Do not make him an asset so that Hillary makes him a VP candidate.
Big presumptions to reach the conclusion that it was Trump supporters in particular who went to the D side in the primary to cast ballots for Bernie. These are probably the WV voters who vote D when possible, but for them a Hillary! vote is just not possible.
Does anyone actually believe for an instant that an NBC reporter would even begin to understand WV voters? Or any voters from “flyover land?”
Why in the world would ANYBODY in West Virginia support Hillary after what Obama and she has done to their coal mining industry?
WV has an “open primary”????? Those registered as “Independent” can vote, but only in the “Democratic” primary???
Then where the heck was I voting yesterday???? Could have sworn I was in WV voting in a “closed” primary.
And they wonder why people don’t believe a word that comes from the “media”??? Or as my mother used to ask: “Where on earth do they get this stuff?”
No wonder why they can’t figure out why Trump is winning. ;)
WVA Democrats are conservative.
It was a protest vote against Hillary, not that they like socialist Bernie.
WVA Democrats want a less liberal President than Obama!
The Mountain State will go GOP in November.
There are a lot of EPA minded supporters in West Virginia that see coal as evil, even though it’s keeping their lights on. They can’t see beyond the end of their noses and support the eradication of coal, thus, they vote for Hillary.
A pattern that I bet may be in the exit data in other closed primary states as well... Folks who intend to vote Trump, are registered Dems, and hate Hillary... so they voted for Sanders.....
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