The Curious Case of West Virginia

And no, I'm not talking about the weird way in which it got admitted to the Union. I'm talking about the strange pattern it followed as it gradually stopped thinking that it was a northern state, and started thinking like a southern state. Here's my analysis: West Virginia is closely connected to three states, Ohio, Kentucky, and Virginia. I don't think the connection to Maryland or Pennsylvania is nearly as strong. So, let's look at the difference between its presidential voting and that of those three states in each election since its creation. If we do, a very interesting pattern emerges. From 1864 through 1936, the closest of these three states to West Virginia was Ohio twelve out of nineteen elections. On average the WV-OH difference was just 8.8% in this span, compared to a 14.9% difference with Kentucky and a 19.9% difference with Virginia. During this period, West Virginia thought it was a northern state. Then something flipped. From 1940 through 1980, Kentucky was the closest state to West Virginia nine out of eleven times, differing by an average of just 5.2%, compared to a 12.4% differential for Ohio and a 16.0% gap for Virginia. Now Kentucky was thinking like an inland southern state, not a northern state.

Since then it's gotten a little bit complicated: we've had three Ohio elections, two Virginia and two Kentucky. Meanwhile, the average gap is 9.8% for Kentucky, 10.7% for Ohio, and 14.3% for Virginia. I'm not sure exactly what's been going on, but part of the confusion is doubtless because the party of northern liberals nominated a southern moderate during two of those elections. In 2008 West Virginia was right alongside Kentucky in radically opposing Obama, differing by just 3%, while Ohio and Virginia supported Obama and had gaps more like 18% or 19%. One other thing I note is that there was a bit of a transition period in the flip I observe in the previous paragraph. From 1924 through 1956, the difference between Kentucky and West Virginia was under 10% in every election, averaging a paltry 2.4%. And while Ohio 'won' all six elections from 1892 through 1912, and Kentucky 'won' the five consecutive elections from 1940 through 1956, they split the six elections from 1916 through 1936 three apiece.

So what we see here is that, after seceding from the Confederacy and joining the Union, West Virginia originally thought it was a northern state. It wanted nothing to do with its Confederate progenitor, and didn't even really agree much with its neighboring fellow border state. But then, at around the time the shift from Southern conservative Democrats and Northern liberal Republicans to the other way around was just beginning, West Virginia started to realize that it wasn't, actually, a northern state. It still wasn't Virginia, but now it was perhaps more aligned with Kentucky, so similar in demographics and geographic situation. More recently, things have gotten a little bit more confusing, as (among other things) Virginia proper has stopped being so certain that it's a Southern state. Right now it feels like in the long term Virginia may wind up being the most liberal of these states, with Kentucky and West Virginia the most conservative. It's a funny path this odd little state has taken, I'd say.