Appalachia
Josh Marshall has a great post up about Obama’s problem in Appalachia, which the media has confused with a broader problem with working class or rural white voters. The numbers just don’t bare out that latter analysis, as Josh elaborates:
But these claims are both inaccurate because they are incomplete. You can look at states like Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states and see the different numbers and they are all explained by one basic fact. Obama's problem isn't with white working class voters or rural voters. It's Appalachia. That explains why Obama had a difficult time in Ohio and Pennsylvania and why he's getting crushed in West Virginia and Kentucky.If it were just a matter of rural voters or the white working class, the pattern would show up in other regions. But by and large it does not.
In so many words, Pennsylvania and Ohio have big chunks of Appalachia within their borders. But those regions are heavily offset by non-Appalachian sections that are cultural and demographically distinct. West Virginia is 100% Appalachian. If you look at southeastern Ohio or the middle chunk of Pennsylvania, Obama did about the same as he’s doing tonight in West Virginia.
Read the rest here