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Question for the board-West Virginia is currently a solid Republican state and has been for the last 4 presidential elections. My question is how or why did this happen? It was usually a fairly sold Democrat state even after the realignment of Southern whites to the GOP. Not only did Clinton carry it both times, but Carter carried it in 1980 and Dukakis carried it in 1988. It appears that the 2000 election is when it became a Republican state. It seems strange to me that a state that went for Dukakis just 12 years earlier would not go for Gore. Any ideas?
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