Obama's Coalition Problem

Ben Smith:

Barack Obama’s stinging defeat in West Virginia brings a sharp focus on the new coalition he may have to assemble to win the White House in November.

West Viginians rejected the presumptive Democratic nominee by more than a two-to-one margin, one of the widest margins of the primary season. The outcome was the predictable result of familiar demographics: West Virginia’s relatively poor white voters have been Hillary Rodham Clinton’s base since February.

In a stark rejection of Obama in a state Bill Clinton carried in 1992 and 1996, almost half of the Democratic primary voters — typically the most partisan Democrats in a state — said they’d vote for Republican John McCain rather than Obama in November.

The results also suggested a deeper dissatisfaction among the state’s Democrats with both candidates: John Edwards, who dropped out more than three months ago, registered a substantial 7 percent of the vote, though Clinton immediately used the results to make her own case for electablity.