Trump promised to revive KY coal. He didn’t, but he’s still expected to win ‘huge.’
Coal wasn’t the only reason Donald Trump trounced Hillary Clinton by margins of 4 to 1 or more in Eastern Kentucky in the 2016 presidential election, but it was a key factor.
The region had lost thousands of coal jobs in just a few years, sapping family finances, the retail economy and money for local-government services. Trump capitalized on the desperation, vowing he would roll back environmental rules and revive coal jobs.
“And for those miners, get ready because you’re gonna be working your asses off, alright?” Trump told a cheering crowd in West Virginia in May 2016.
It didn’t happen.
Coal employment averaged 3,813 in Eastern Kentucky in the period when Trump told miners to get ready to go back to work. In the same period this year, from April 1 through June 30, the industry employed an average of just 2,256 people in the region, according to the most recent report from the state Energy and Environment Cabinet.
Statewide, coal jobs in the second quarter of 2020 averaged 3,760, down from 6,517 in the same period in 2016.
The economic slowdown caused by the novel coronavirus hurt employment in many sectors, coal included, in the second quarter of this year, but the industry was at a low point in Kentucky even before that. The number of jobs in the state averaged 4,608 from Jan. 1 through the end of March, down by more than 2,000 from the 6,517 reported in the same time in 2016.
The national figures don’t bear out a resurgence of coal jobs under Trump, either.
The industry employed 50,400 people the month Trump was elected. It rose for a time during his term, but in February, before the coronavirus recession took hold, U.S. employment was back at 50,400, according to the U.S. Bureau of labor Statistics
“Ultimately he did not do what he said he was going to do — save coal jobs,” said Nancy Cade, the Davenport Distinguished Professor of History and Political Science at the University of Pikeville.
But will that hurt him in Eastern Kentucky’s coal counties as he seeks a second term?
Trump ‘put us in a better position’
Not much, if at all, according to local officials and political observers in the region.
One reason is that many people give Trump credit for his efforts to shore up coal even if they haven’t worked.
Trump, a Republican, did away with several initiatives the Obama Administration had pushed to toughen environmental rules affecting coal, including one called the Clean Power Plan that would have put coal at a disadvantage for power-plant customers.
Trump stanched the bleeding in the industry, at least for awhile, said Tyler White, president of the Kentucky Coal Association.
“I think his initial impact on the industry put us in a better position than we would have been,” White said.
Coal jobs edged up in Eastern Kentucky in Trump’s first two years in office. Many residents credit the increases to Trump’s efforts to help the industry. Eastern Kentucky “probably still looks at it as if he tried,” said state Rep. Angie Hatton, a Democrat from Letcher County.
Rolling back environmental rules that Trump and others decried as a “war on coal” couldn’t significantly boost jobs because those rules were not the main factor in the decline of coal.
Rather, studies have consistently found that while environmental rules played some part, competition from cheaper natural gas was a bigger factor in driving down demand for coal. That included a study from Trump’s own Department of Energy.
The rise of renewable energy such as wind and solar power, which have benefited from subsidies, has also hurt coal.
Utilities have retired as much coal-fired generation capacity during Trump’s term as in Obama’s second term.
But many people in Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia still blame Obama and environmental rules because jobs began plummeting on his watch.
“People saw coal jobs killed in a huge way when Obama was president,” said Harlan County Judge-Executive Dan Mosley, a Democrat.
Democratic brand suffering
The national Democratic brand also continues to suffer in Eastern Kentucky because of a comment Clinton made in 2016, when she said at a town hall meeting “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
Supporters said what Clinton meant, correctly, was that market changes would hurt coal jobs and production as natural gas displaced coal in electricity generation. Clinton added that the country shouldn’t forget the workers hurt by the downturn.
“People didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton because she had that famous quote about how we were gonna put a lot of coal miners out of business, and I don’t know that that could ever be erased from the memory of Eastern Kentucky,” Hatton said.
Months earlier, Clinton had outlined a $30 billion proposal to help areas such as Eastern Kentucky hurt by the transition from coal.
Trump didn’t put forth a specific plan to help coal areas past reversing Obama Administration environmental initiatives, but Clinton’s plan got her no traction.
Hatton criticized Trump for not doing more to boost issues and legislation that could help Eastern Kentucky.
Those include the proposed RECLAIM Act, which would speed up release of $1 billion in federal abandoned-mine land funds to clean up environmental problems and try to boost economic development, and efforts to shore up black-lung benefits for sick miners.
Hatton said people in Eastern Kentucky sacrificed for generations to provide power for the nation before losing their livelihoods, and she wants the presidential candidates to give the region “recognition that we are really, really struggling and a plan to fix it.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, has called for the nation to achieve net-zero carbon emissions.
That would put coal at a disadvantage, though Biden’s plan also includes research on technology to capture carbon emissions from coal plants, which, if commercially viable, could help keep some coal plants viable.
Biden also has said the nation must provide more help for places hurt by the transition away from coal, and has pledged to fulfill pension and health care benefits to miners and their widows and to make coal companies pay more into the federal black lung program.
Many voters in Kentucky coal country see Biden as far less friendly to the coal industry than Trump, local officials said.
‘He says things they want to hear’
Coal aside, most Eastern Kentucky voters will stick with Trump because they are conservative, whether Republican or Democrat, meaning they are closer to Trump politically than to Biden on many issues, several local officials said.
“The Democratic Party at the national level is out touch with Democrats, even Democrats like me in rural Kentucky, on a lot of different issues, whether it’s Second Amendment rights, whether it’s the pro-life movement, whether it’s immigration and open borders,” said Pike County Judge-Executive Ray S. Jones II, a Democrat. “Kentucky Democrats on social issues historically have been very conservative.”
Sen. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, who has been a coal miner and represented coal companies as an attorney, said social issues will likely take priority over Trump’s inability to get coal mines reopened.
“I think there are other issues once that’s set aside or compartmentalized in somebody’s mind that would probably prevail in Eastern Kentucky, whether it’s the Second Amendment or abortion issues,” Webb said.
Floyd County Judge-Executive Robbie Williams, an independent, said that what Trump says and does may not always match, but his support for gun rights, opposition to abortion, and alliance with Christian evangelicals resonate with many voters in Eastern Kentucky.
“A lot of what they stand for aligns with what Donald Trump says,” Williams said. “He says things they want to hear.”
Cade, the University of Pikeville professor, said that neither national political party has addressed the needs of working people such as miners, in Eastern Kentucky and elsewhere.
Trump capitalized on that, turning out blue-collar white workers in 2016 who didn’t routinely vote.
“They need hope, they need someone to tell them things are gonna be better, and that’s what Trump does,” Cade said.
God, guns and coal
Trump has faced criticism this year for what many see as a halting response to the coronavirus pandemic.
That will matter nationally, but not in Eastern Kentucky, where deaths have not been as widespread in some areas, Hatton said.
Cade said she is not sure there is as much enthusiasm for Trump this year as in 2016, and that Biden could pull some votes away, but that Trump will win easily in Eastern Kentucky.
Trump has convinced his base to not trust anything in the media that does not praise him, Cade said.
“Trump’s just got a death grip on his voters,” she said.
Some Eastern Kentucky counties pivoted to Democrat Andy Beshear in last year’s gubernatorial election, but that was a function of then-Gov. Matt Bevin’s unpopularity, not an indication that a lot of voters are ready to vote for a Democrat for president, local officials said.
There’s been a significant shift in party registration from Democrat to Republican in Harlan County for ideological, religious and cultural reasons, said Mosley, the judge-executive.
In November 2015, there were 14,259 registered Democrats in the county and 5,668 Republicans. In June, registered Democrats had slipped to 11,546 while the GOP number had climbed to 8,033, according to state figures.
The trend was the same in nearly every Eastern Kentucky coal county even as the region lost population, with Republicans gaining registered voters and Democrats losing.
“God, guns and coal have been what has changed party registration and political ideology,” Mosley said. “He (Trump) will carry Eastern Kentucky huge.”
