Kentucky: Coalfields vs. Bluegrass
Learn how big business extracted more than just coal from Kentucky.
Topline Takeaways
Pres. Joe Biden won just two counties in Kentucky; both are much more urbanized and have higher Black populations than the rest of the Commonwealth.
When Democrats joined forces with coal-averse environmentalists, Kentucky voters flipped to supporting Republicans who vowed to fight the “War on Coal.”
Much of the coalfields in Kentucky face persistent poverty and adverse health outcomes, largely due to the extractive nature of the coal industry.
In-Depth Insights
Joe Biden only won two Kentucky counties which fall within the Bluegrass region: Fayette county and Jefferson county, home to Lexington and Louisville, respectively. Both urban counties have African American populations that are above the national average (14% and 21%) which helped Biden secure a larger share of the vote. Outside of these two counties, Biden suffered greatly due to his connection to the Obama administration’s “War on Coal.” Despite the fact that the coal industry’s most significant contractions happened decades before Obama took office, Republicans used the terminology as an effective campaign tactic, characterizing the Obama administration’s restrictions on coal emissions as a concerted attack on the region. The tactic worked remarkably well on Hillary Clinton in 2016, even within her own party. Despite winning over 400,000 votes in the 2008 Kentucky Democratic primary (beating then Sen. Obama by a whopping 36-point margin), she struggled to capture over 200,000 votes eight years later. The 2016 Kentucky Democratic primary gave her a nail-biting finish as she only beat Bernie Sanders by less than a point.
It’s important to note that the enemy (at least in the early 2000s) was not explicitly Democrats, but environmentalists and the EPA: a coalition that fights the use of coal as a primary energy source, thereby threatening Eastern Kentucky’s highly-specialized economy. When Democrats began embracing environmentalism as a central tenet of the national party, the region (once a deep-blue haven) revolted by switching to Republicans who promised to keep coal alive.
With his pro-coal rhetoric, Donald Trump cemented Republican dominance in Kentucky by winning almost every county in the Commonwealth, winning over 80% of the votes in a large number of counties in Eastern Kentucky. This patch of deep red coincides with the Eastern Kentucky Coalfield, a large coal deposit beneath the Appalachian mountains that was first tapped with the introduction of railroads in the late 1800s. Due to the area’s rugged terrain, the region’s population is heavily distributed and dotted by very small towns; the largest being Ashland, KY only holding a population of 21,000 residents.
Resource extraction, specifically coal mining, is what has powered the economic engine of the Commonwealth throughout its history and also charts the political path of its voters throughout the 20th century. These types of difficult, manual jobs were the only avenue to economic security for many in the area and has resulted in extremely difficult living conditions, especially as the industry began to shrink in the late 20th century. Today, more than 40 of Kentucky’s counties are considered “persistently poor” by the USDA, areas that have retained a rate of poverty of 20% or higher for the last 30 years. All of them fall in Eastern Kentucky.
Residents in these areas also suffer from disproportionately poorer health outcomes compared to the rest of the country. Chronic health issues like lung cancer, COPD, heart disease and even birth defects are much more prevalent among residents in and around mining towns. Many counties in the region fall in the bottom 10th percentile in the nation for life expectancy, mainly due to complications arising from practices employed by mining operations. While some of this can be directly attributed to the unsafe working conditions involved with working in the mines, evidence is emerging that even bystanders are affected due to the practice of mountaintop removal.
Mountaintop removal is when mining companies literally blow the tops off of mountains, extract the valuable resources beneath the surface and dump the excess earth in nearby valleys. The practice leaves scarred landscapes in its wake where vegetation struggles to grow. While the environmental toll is immediately apparent, evidence has emerged proving that the practice also has clear detrimental effects on the health of residents living nearby. Research has recently established causality, showing that adverse health outcomes are linked specifically due to the particulate matter that hangs in the air and is breathed in by residents every day.
Forecasting the Future: Many Kentucky voters are stuck in a paradoxical battle where coal is both the source of and the solution to their issues. Most families who have lived in the area for generations deeply understand the danger of working in the mines and even discourage young workers from entering the industry. Yet many are forced to turn toward coal due to a lack of alternatives as no other major industries have provided well-paying jobs that compete with mining wages.
The rugged, manual nature of the work also becomes a source of pride for many in the region. For workers that often feel powerless and impoverished, there’s a distinct “cult of self-worth” that emerges from working a well-paying job that some simply can’t do:
Hillary Clinton’s infamous coal gaffe is regularly taken out of context. Her promise to “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” was quickly followed up with a commitment to “the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.” The problem is that the context is unimportant to miners like the one quoted above. People living in these rough, isolated areas are in desperate need of help and have been stuck in sub-par living conditions for decades. Vague promises of alternatives and new opportunities on the horizon come off as too little too late. Conversely, the clearest path out of the darkness for most is to travel deeper into it, clinging to hope that higher wages will be worth the immense toll on both their bodies and the land. The fundamental issue is that this extraction-focused economy is designed to do just that: extract, and nothing more.
The mining economy of Eastern Kentucky is explicitly set up to remove wealth from these areas rather than reinvesting the wealth to build sustainable communities. Much of the land used for mining is privately owned by people who run energy companies from many states away. Their priority is the health of the business which means extracting as much of the polluting resource as possible for as little cost as possible. They often don’t bother advocating for improved public services as the region’s low population density makes providing these services expensive, requiring an increase in taxes that would eat at their bottom lines. In fact, the isolated and rugged landscape works in the industry’s favor as it reduces opportunities for residents, effectively trapping them in a vicious cycle where they’re reliant on coal’s prosperity for survival.
Republicans, with Trump as their figurehead, have been rewarded by voters for leaning into the bleak cycle. During his presidency, Donald Trump rolled back many restrictions and moratoriums related to the coal industry in what amounted to a symbolic gesture of solidarity. (Despite Trump’s actions, the coal industry saw continued decline throughout his presidency.) This has led to almost complete electoral domination as both the Kentucky House and Senate are led by Republican supermajorities, particularly shocking since the Commonwealth previously had a heavy presence of Democrats in the Senate and a Democratic majority in the House until Trump’s emergence in 2015.
Meanwhile, Democrats continue to fight for the people of Kentucky rather than the coal industry and are only seeing continued losses. A Kentucky congressman made headlines for supporting increased research into the adverse health effects of mountaintop removal. That congressman was Democrat John Yarmuth who represents Kentucky’s 3rd congressional district in Louisville, found on the opposite side of the state far from where most of the mountaintop removal is actually occurring. The congressman who represents this area, Hal Rogers (R), supports mountaintop removal as an economic driver for the region, despite the fact that there is little evidence to support that wealth is being reinvested locally. When the voters that are actually being adversely affected by these practices continue to reject those that seek to help them in large numbers, there’s not much that can be done.
The future of Kentucky, particularly those reliant on coal, lies in the downward spiral of the coal industry and those who have control over its remains. As voters continue to support politicians committed to spinning the spiral to its logical conclusion, the state will continued to be hollowed out until all that’s left is its people, sickened and battered from an industry they hoped would be their ticket to prosperity.