> the poorest state in the country, west virginia has also become one of the most republican in recent years and former president trump carried it on election day with 69% of the vote, his second highest total of any state and only topped by wyoming where he got 71% of the vote. for the fourth consecutive presidential election, the republican candidate also swept all west virginia counties. vice president harris performed best in monongalia, kanawah, and cabell counties, one of which contains charleston, the state capital and largest population center. almost nothing appreciably changed from the 2016 election. > this isolated, impoverished, mountainous, and landlocked state has a unique history of being carved out of an existing state--until 1863 it was the western third of virginia. after the treaty of paris ended the us war of independence in 1783, virginia's border, which only went up to the edge of the appalachians in colonial times, was extended westward to encompass the area that is now west virginia. the region's political and electoral history up to the civil war was thus that of virginia's. when war began in 1861 the "hillbilly" population of the west, having no slaves and little in common with the planter aristocracy of the tidewater, refused to secede from the union along with the rest of the state. in 1863 congress granted the area statehood as west virginia, ignoring the constitutional prohibition on new states being carved out of existing ones. there were several minor campaigns and battles during the war but the state avoided major fighting.
United States