Clinton falls to Sanders in an unlikely place | McClatchy Washington Bureau

Bernie Sanders may be far behind Hillary Clinton in delegates, but there’s one unlikely place he’s outpacing her: coal country.

Sanders has been outspoken in his support for policies to address climate change, including moving away from fossil fuels. But remarks Clinton made in Ohio in March about putting “a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business” may have hurt her in coal regions.

“That was an unfortunate choice of words,” said Tony Oppegard, a mine-safety attorney in Lexington, Ky., who thinks that some in coal country voted against Clinton rather than for Sanders.

Although Clinton eked out a close victory in Kentucky’s Democratic primary Tuesday, Sanders won nearly all of the state’s coal-producing counties.

Last week, Sanders won every county in West Virginia, the No. 2 coal producing state. Kentucky is No. 3. And in coal-heavy western Pennsylvania and southern Illinois, Sanders edged out Clinton though she won both those states overall.

“She’s getting pummeled in coal counties,” said Stephen Voss, an associate professor of political science at the University of Kentucky. “Those coal comments are just destroying her.”

These are places where Clinton thrived in 2008. Take Pike County, the heart of eastern Kentucky’s coalfield. Eight years ago, Clinton beat Barack Obama there 91 percent to 8 percent. On Tuesday, Sanders beat Clinton in Pike County 54 percent to 26 percent.

Clinton won 118 out of Kentucky’s 120 counties in 2008, but Sanders won 86 on Tuesday.

It’s a dramatic shift, especially considering that President Bill Clinton carried both Kentucky and West Virginia, twice.

“It clearly indicates that the political cache of the Clinton name is no longer what it once was,” said Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association.

U.S. coal mines employed about 70,000 workers in 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 20,000 fewer than they did in 2008.

In spite of all the economic underpinnings of coal’s decline, elected officials in coal country and Washington have pinned the blame almost entirely on President Barack Obama’s environmental policies. And for the most part, it’s stuck.

That puts Clinton, who served as Secretary of State in Obama’s first term, in an uncomfortable position: asking for the votes of laid-off coal miners who think her former boss put them out of work.

“In the coalfields, President Obama is not very well regarded,” said Phil Smith, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers Union. “She’s the public face of the Obama administration in the coalfields, in many respects.”

The coal industry is reeling primarily because of economic factors, including an abundance of cheaper natural gas that’s become more attractive to electric utilities. Appalachian coal, which is more expensive to mine and transport, is having a hard time competing with cheaper coal from Western states.

Coal also is in a tailspin because of the collapse in Chinese demand for the kind of coal used to make steel. Coal companies went on a buying binge five years ago, counting on the China market to recoup their investment.

The boom went bust, and the companies got stuck with debt. Some of the biggest names — including Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, Patriot Coal and Alpha Natural Resources — are now in bankruptcy.

Sanders opposes hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the technique used to extract the gas from shale formations. Ironically, shutting off that gas supply would probably benefit coal: This year, natural gas is expected to overtake coal as the largest source of U.S. power.

But Sanders also favors more aggressive steps to curb climate change than many other Democrats do, including Obama. Sanders wants to cut carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2030 — Obama’s plan calls for a 32-percent reduction. Sanders favors a carbon tax and wants to end federal subsidies for fossil fuels.

Still, Sanders’ populist proposals to curb Wall Street excess might resonate in coal regions. Because so many coal companies are in bankruptcy, 90,000 current and former mine workers face having their pensions and health benefits reduced as the companies go through restructuring.

Sanders is pushing for a pension fix in the Senate, but he faces a powerful foe: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

“Promises were made decades and decades ago to these coal miners,” he said last week in a campaign stop in Bowling Green, Ky. “It is morally unacceptable that now after years of sacrifice that those promises are now ended and the rug pulled out from under these coal miners.”

Clinton, too, supports efforts to save the miners’ pensions, and has pitched a $30-billion plan to help distressed coal communities.

“As she said during a visit to Appalachia earlier this month,” said Ian Sams, a Clinton spokesman, “Hillary Clinton will fight for Americans facing hardship due to coal industry declines as president, regardless of whether they support her candidacy, because she believes coal country cannot be left out of America’s economic future.”

But those who know the region well say it’s unlikely that she’ll beat Republican Donald Trump there in the fall, even if she secures backing from the unions.

“They’re not going to vote for Hillary,” Oppegard said of coal miners.

The West Virginia Coal Association endorsed Trump in March. While Bissett said the Kentucky Coal Association doesn’t make endorsements, he doubts she’ll win there.

“It would take a seismic and unforeseen shift to make Secretary Clinton attractive to Kentucky voters,” he said, “even those voters that share her party affiliation.”

Many coal miners have given up on the Democratic Party, Smith said.

“There aren’t many more Clinton Democrats left in the coalfields,” he said.