As polls close in West Virginia, Associated Press calls state for Donald Trump
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The AP declared President Donald Trump the winner of West Virginia as soon as polls closed in the state, even though election officials there had yet to release any results from Tuesday's presidential contest.
The news agency did so after results from AP VoteCast and an analysis of voting statistics confirmed expectations that the state's longstanding political trend of favoring Republican presidential candidates will hold.
VoteCast, the AP's wide-ranging survey of the American electorate, captures voters' choices and why they made them.
Trump won West Virginia by 42 points in 2016. The last Democratic presidential contender to carry the state was Bill Clinton in 1996.
President Donald Trump has coasted to victory in West Virginia, taking its five electoral votes.
The Republican nominee defeated Democrat Joe Biden on Tuesday in a reliably conservative state.
The last Democrat to win a presidential race in West Virginia was Bill Clinton in 1996.
Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in West Virginia four years ago by 42 percentage points, one of his highest margins of victory in the nation. Many in the state credit him for his conservative populism and promises to help the declining coal industry, even as few expected he could bring back jobs in a dying field.