PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — The chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party admits Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton, who was booed in southern West Virginia prior to the May primary election, will continue to be a hard sell in the Mountain State heading into November.
In the coming months, “It is going to be a tough road for us, but we’re going to work hard. We’re going to stay focused on the issues — the economy and equal rights — and we’re just going to work hard for all our candidates,” Belinda Biafore said on Wednesday’s MetroNews “Talkline” from Philadelphia where the Democratic National Convention continued.
President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the 2016 Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, were scheduled to speak at the Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday night.
On Tuesday night, during the Convention Roll Call, 19 of West Virginia’s 37 total delegates, including eight superdelegates, supported Clinton, while 18 delegates backed U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.).
The superdelegates have freedom to choose a presidential candidate, while the 29 other West Virginia delegates were pledged to specific candidates ahead of the DNC.
In the May 10 primary election in West Virginia, nearly 52 percent of the Mountain State’s voters, 124,700, cast ballots for Sanders. Clinton finished with about 35 percent of the vote, 86,914 individual votes, according to results from the Secretary of State’s Office.
“It wasn’t a slap in the face to the voters,” Biafore said of the DNC delegate results from West Virginia, citing the Sanders endorsement of Clinton earlier this week. “It was something that we all came together (on) for the unity of the party and that’s the way it worked out.”
It was Sanders who moved Tuesday to nominate Clinton by acclamation.
Of some of West Virginia’s Sanders delegates, “They’re wearing their Hillary shirts today,” Biafore reported. “Now we have a few that, of course, are disappointed and upset and, I told them, I know the feeling.” She backed Clinton in 2008 when Obama won the nomination.
Despite her disappointment at the time, “The next day, I was knocking on doors pushing the Democratic Party,” she said.
Former President Bill Clinton spoke of West Virginia during his DNC address Tuesday night.
“You should elect her because she’ll never quit when the going gets tough. She’ll never quit on you,” President Clinton told the Convention crowd near the end of his speech.
“She sent me in this primary to West Virginia where she knew we were going to lose to look those coal miners in the eye and say, ‘I’m down here because Hillary sent me to tell you that, if you really think you can get the economy back you had 50 years ago, have had it, vote for whoever you want to. But, if she wins, she is coming back for you to take you along on a ride to America’s future.'”
Biafore said she buys that pledge from Clinton more than the promises from Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, that he’ll “put the miners back to work.”
“It may be a stronger message, but I’m not so sure it’s as realistic. He likes to talk a lot,” Biafore said of Trump. “With the Clintons, I know they put their money where their mouth is. They’ve done it in the past.”
The Democratic National Convention closes on Thursday night when Clinton officially accepts the Democratic presidential nomination. Her daughter, Chelsea, will introduce her.
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.