Jonathan Swan writes at The Hill:
Hillary Clinton's campaign gaffe about putting coal miners out of work likely hurt her badly in West Virginia, a primary she lost to Bernie Sanders on Tuesday.
More than 60 percent of voters in West Virginia's Democratic presidential primary who identified themselves as belonging to coal miner households voted for Sanders, according to MSNBC exit polls.
Just 30 percent of coal miner households voted for Clinton in West Virginia's Democratic primary.
It's a big slide for the former first lady, who won the state by a huge margin over Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential primaries. But she seems to have lost a good deal of affection among the state's white working-class voters.
West Virginia has deep economic and psychological ties to the coal industry, and Clinton didn't help herself when she said earlier this year, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”ABC reports:
In West Virginia, voters from both parties in Tuesday's presidential primary are united on two things: They see the economy as the top issue facing the country, and they think trade is taking American jobs.
More than half of voters in both West Virginia primaries say the economy is the top issue facing the country. About 6 in 10 voters in the Democratic primary say they're very worried about the economy and 3 in 10 say they're somewhat worried.
About two-thirds of the state's Republican primary voters and more than half of Democratic primary voters say trade with other countries mostly takes jobs from American workers.
In Nebraska, half of Republican primary voters say trade takes jobs, while about a third say it creates them.
Just 3 in 10 Nebraska GOP voters say the economy is the top issue facing the country. Another 3 in 10 say government spending, 2 in 10 say terrorism and less than 2 in 10 say immigration.
