Dukakis won WV IOTL, enough said 🤪
Not just West Virginia.
Look at the county map of 1988 for a moment:
In this era, many parts of the rural South and Midwest, especially states like Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Lousiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Iowa were still heavily Democratic, and Dukakis was a far, far weaker candidate than Obama or Biden. He wasn't even some folksy Southerner.
To be fair, he had Lloyd Bentsen on the ticket. But Lloyd Bentsen, a Democrat, was also super popular. He won Texas by a 19 point margin, the last time a Democrat won a Texas senate race.
It's clear that if the Democrats had chosen a stronger candidate, they could won in 1988 easily.
And yes, a lot of these counties are now Trump territory, but Trump won because he spoke to these people and promised to get them their jobs back.
If the Democrats do one day nominate another hardcore populist in the future, they could possibly regain middle America.