West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Telling West Virginia's Story
On West Virginia Morning, Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders reflects on his visit to the state last week in an interview with Ashton Marra…
On West Virginia Morning, Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders reflects on his visit to the state last week in an interview with Ashton Marra and Clark Davis takes the political pulse among students at Marshall University.
These stories on West Virginia Morning from West Virginia Public Broadcasting – telling West Virginia’s story.
College campuses are often thought of as microcosms of society in so many ways and when it comes to politics, the notion tends to hold up. On the campus…
College campuses are often thought of as microcosms of society in so many ways and when it comes to politics, the notion tends to hold up. On the campus of Marshall University, students are picking and choosing sides in the presidential race and estimating the impact the candidates will have on student voter turnout.
Just like in the general public, Marshall University College students have picked their sides when it comes to which presidential candidate they’ll vote for. Marshall University Student Gretchen Fleming was at the Bernie Sanders rally in Huntington last month.
“I would still vote for Hillary over a Donald Trump because he’s fundamentally everything that is wrong with this country,” Fleming said.
Her opinion is pretty common on the Marshall campus. Many students says they’ll vote for their favorite candidate in the primary, but stick with the party nominee in the general, no matter who it is.
Ethan Higginbotham is Sanders supporter, who said that the ground swell of support for Trump could mean more college students will come to the polls.
You can't deny that Donald Trump has tapped into something and he's tapped into the silent majority on the right and that's terrifying honestly. — Marshall Student, Ethan Higginbotham
“I think it’s playing on both sides, I think you have a lot of people coming out to make sure that someone like Donald Trump doesn’t get into the White House, but at the same time you can’t deny that Donald Trump has tapped into something and he’s tapped into the silent majority on the right and that’s terrifying honestly, so I think we need to put our best candidate forward to go up against Trump,” Higginbotham said.
But getting young people out to vote has always been a challenging task. This year, however, the contentiousness of the presidential races have pushed young voters to hit the polls. In neighboring Maryland youth participation increased in both party primaries, with 18% voting, up from 15% in 2008. On the Democratic side Sanders received 68% of the youth vote in Maryland, a trend that is likely to be mirrored in young West Virginia voters.
In Pennsylvania 18% of all youth voters between the ages of 18 and 29 participated in their primary on April 26. Young people in Pennsylvania preferred Sanders even though Clinton won the state and 52% of the youth vote on republican side went to Trump.
Nick Uliana is a Marshall University sophomore, he said as a Republican, he’s not a Trump fan, but would vote for the outspoken candidate.
“I would vote for Donald Trump if it got to that situation just because I really don’t like Hillary Clinton, I feel like she’s a criminal in my opinion,” Uliana said.
During the previous presidential election in 2012, West Virginia had the lowest voter turnout of any state in the nation with less than half of registered voters turning out to the polls. When it comes to 18 to 24 year olds, less than 23 percent cast ballots in the race. But so far this election cycle, the Secretary of State’s office says 30 thousand more people voted during the first seven days of early voting when compared to 2012.
Apparent Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump drew a crowd of more than 10,000 to the Charleston Civic Center Thursday for a campaign rally largely focused on revitalizing the coal industry.
Although the candidate shared few specifics about ways to bring the ailing industry back in West Virginia, he several times pointed to the weakening of regulations at the federal level as a way to help miners.
“If they didn’t have ridiculous regulations that put you out of business and make it impossible for you to compete, I’m going to take that off,” Trump said to loud cheers. “You are going to be proud of me.”
Trump received the endorsement of the West Virginia Coal Association shortly before the rally began and was joined on stage by Coal Association Vice President Chris Hamilton who presented him with a hard hat.
“How’s my hair?” Trump joked after trying the hat on.
It was his support of the coal industry that drew many of the West Virginians in attendance. Coal miner Derek Angel of Boone County said he believes Trump is going to put coal back on the map.
“Our county, our state, everything has been on the decline and it’s pushing everybody out of the state of West Virginia,” Angle said. “So, it kind of gives people a sense of hope to even be a coal miner.”
Republican candidate for Governor Bill Cole introduced Trump and House Speaker Tim Armstead, Senate Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael, Del. Josh Nelson and Democratic Del. Rupie Phillips were among those in the crowd.
“I cannot support a candidate who does not support coal,” Phillips said before the rally.
Twice during the 45 minute speech, Trump told supporters he had already won the party nomination and there was no need for voters to head to the polls in the primary.
“Stay at home,” Trump told the crowd, “and get twice as many people to vote in November.”
Early voting is already underway in the state. West Virginia’s primary election is May 10.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting will air the Donald Trump event in Charleston on Thursday May 5, at 7 p.m.
You can watch this live coverage in several different ways.
– Our TV broadcast will be available on The West Virginia Channel.
– A live video stream is provided via our Youtube Channel and this web post.
– You can also watch on your Apple or Android device using the new WVPB App, available for free online.
Donald Trump says he would bring back lost coal-mining jobs, and he is positioning for the November election in big coal states by portraying Hillary…
Donald Trump says he would bring back lost coal-mining jobs, and he is positioning for the November election in big coal states by portraying Hillary Clinton as a job killer.
Trump, however, has yet to explain exactly how he will revitalize Appalachia’s coal industry. To pull it off, he will have to overcome market forces and a push for cleaner fuels that have pummeled coal.
Coal’s slump is largely the result of cheap natural gas, which now rivals coal as a fuel for generating electricity. Older coal-fired plants are being idled to meet clean-air standards.
Another hurdle for reviving coal mining in Appalachia: less coal. Reserves of coal still in the ground are smaller than in western states like Wyoming, the leading coal producer.
TRUMP: “We’re going to get those miners back to work … the miners of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, which was so great to me last week, Ohio and all over are going to start to work again, believe me. They are going to be proud again to be miners.”
THE FACTS: It is unclear what Trump would do to increase mining jobs. He has long criticized the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, saying that its proposals to tighten emission standards on coal-burning power plants are killing American jobs. A Trump adviser said that a Trump administration would review many EPA regulations including those affecting the coal industry.
While the requirements have raised the cost of operating coal-fired plants, experts say a bigger factor in coal’s decline has been cheaper natural gas. Drilling techniques such as fracking have sparked a boom in gas production, driving down prices and prompting utilities to switch from coal.
As recently as 2008, about half the electricity in the U.S. came from burning coal and one-fifth from burning natural gas. Today, each accounts for about one-third — nuclear, hydroelectric and renewables like solar and wind make up most of the rest. Weak economic growth has hurt demand for Appalachian coal used in making steel.
U.S. coal production fell 10 percent last year. The Energy Department predicts it will drop 16 percent this year, the biggest one-year decline since 1958.
John Deskins, director of an economic-research bureau at West Virginia University, said government’s ability to boost coal production is limited.
“It is very unlikely we will see a return to levels of coal production like we observed in 2008,” the most recent peak in the state, Deskins said. Easing EPA restrictions — the industry is challenging EPA in court — would help over the long run, but not enough to offset the loss of market share to natural gas, he said.
There is another limitation on coal’s future in Appalachia: After decades of heavy production, there is less of it to be mined.
Wyoming, with rich reserves of low-sulfur coal near the surface, is the largest coal-producing-state and has the most coal still in the ground at producing mines. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Wyoming has three times as much recoverable reserves at producing mines as West Virginia and about twice as much as West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio combined.
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TRUMP: “I want clean coal, and we’re going to have clean coal and we’re going to have plenty of it. We’re going to have great, clean coal. We’re going to have an amazing mining business.”
THE FACTS: Clean coal covers a range of technologies, some already in use, to reduce pollution. Many types of emissions from coal-fired plants have been reduced, but the capturing and storing of carbon dioxide, the emission that scientists say is most responsible for climate change, has been harder to accomplish on a significant scale.
A model carbon-capture plant being built in Mississippi has encountered repeated delays and huge cost overruns that will make it one of the most expensive power plants ever built. The coal industry complains that carbon capture has not received the government incentives showered on renewable energy.
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TRUMP: “We’re not going to be Hillary Clinton. I watched her three or four weeks ago when she was talking about the miners as if they were just numbers, and she was talking about she wants the mines closed and she will never let them work again.”
THE FACTS: Trump is hitting Clinton for comments she made in March on CNN and which continue to dog the presumptive Democratic nominee on the campaign trail. But the remark was part of a longer answer.
Clinton said she had a policy to help coal country benefit from creating renewable energy “because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?” That was quickly followed by “We’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don’t want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.”
This week an out-of-work coal miner in West Virginia confronted Clinton about the remarks, even handing her a photo of his family. Clinton said she had made “a misstatement.”
“What I was saying,” she told the voter, “is that the way things are going now we will continue to lose jobs.”
Coming off of big wins in Indiana's primary Tuesday, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders announced…
Coming off of big wins in Indiana’s primary Tuesday, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders announced scheduled stops in West Virginia.
Both candidates will visit the state Thursday.
A press release from the Trump campaign said he will hold a rally at the Charleston Civic Center Thursday evening at 7 p.m.
Sanders begins his campaign tour of the state with a stop at the Five Loaves and Two Fishes Food Bank near Kimball in McDowell County at 11 a.m. to discuss rural poverty.
Sanders will then travel to Charleston for a 3 p.m. rally at the South Charleston Community Center and ends the day Thursday evening at 7 p.m. with a second rally at the Waterfront Hotel in Morgantown.
The announcements came the same day a new poll by the national group Public Policy Polling placed both Trump and Sanders ahead of their respective rivals in West Virginia.
According to the poll, Trump leads the state at 61 percent over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Sanders leads former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at 45 percent to her 37.
On Monday evening, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was met by Trump supporters in Williamson protesting her trip to the coal community.
More than 6,000 people attended a rally for Democrat Bernie Sanders in Huntington last week. Sanders is also expected to return to West Virginia Thursday.
