Virginia has more metropolitan areas. Every election, we see the same pattern— big cities go to the Democrats, rural areas go to the Republicans. As it turns out, Virginia has a lot more cities than West Virginia. read more
West Virginia, by contrast, has never been much of a magnet for inward migration. On the contrary, its economy has been struggling for decades as coal collapses as an industry. The sad truth is, West Virginia has very little else to offer. It has been trying to get tourism up and running, but only with limited success. read more
West Virginia was and is a cultural border state, but still temperamentally conservative. And the South was solidly Democratic for most of its history until the late 1960s at the presidential level, and only in the 1990s did that really extend to statewide offices. read more
The Kentucky political culture is very similar to West Virginia. The other states that border West Virginia are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. All of those are characterized by large urban centers. The political cultures of those states are consequently different from West Virginia's. read more