With the WV teachers' strike going on (go teachers), there's the usual undercurrent of "why don't they vote for Dems!!!" Aside from the stupidity of collective blame - in which the 45% are supposed to be punished for the votes of the 55% - WV was a Dem stronghold for *decades*. It's wrong to conflate national and state politics, but Dukakis won West Virginia! It was theirs to lose - and they lost it eventually. Even the current governor ran as a Democrat... and then promptly switched. It's now a "red" state, but it wasn't really even 4 years ago. The legislature - both House and Senate! - is now Republican but was held by Democrats for decades.
We can ask why bad Democrats get through whatever primary system there is so that the choice between Ds and Rs isn't that strong a choice, though primaries are for various reasons generally not the purest manifestation of majoritarian democracy, but just saying "vote Democrat!" isn't enough. Dems ran WV forever and the results haven't been pretty.
