US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has defeated Hillary Clinton in West Virginia’s primary, winning over voters deeply sceptical about the economy and keeping his candidacy alive against the frontrunner. “Tonight it appears that we won a big victory in West Virginia,” Sanders said after the results for Tuesday’s primary came in, “and this is a state where Hillary Clinton won with 40 points against Barack Obama in 2008”.
The loss slows Clinton’s march to the nomination, but she is still heavily favoured to become the Democratic candidate in the November 8 election. Deep concerns about the economy underscored West Virginia’s Democratic primary. Roughly six in 10 voters said they were very worried about the direction of the US economy in the next few years. The same proportion cited the economy and jobs was their most important voting issue, according to a preliminary ABC News exit poll.
A remark Clinton made at an Ohio town hall in March that the country would “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” may have hurt her chances with voters in coal-mining states such as West Virginia.During Clinton’s visit to West Virginia and Ohio last week she repeatedly apologised to displaced coal and steel workers for her comment, which she said had been taken out of context, and discussed her plan to help retrain coal workers for clean energy jobs.
