Hillary Clinton will win a huge victory tonight in West Virginia, by at least a 2-to-1 margin (i.e. she will likely win at least two-thirds of the vote). Here is what the polls are telling us:

Clinton 70.9% +/- 2.0% (range: 68.9% to 72.9%)
Obama 29.1% +/- 2.0% (range 27.1% to 31.1%)

The above suggests Clinton will win 19 or 20 delegates while Obama could win 8 or 9 delegates, meaning Clinton could close Obama’s current 176-delegate lead by 10-12 delegates. I would imagine that if Obama breaks 30% of the vote, his campaign would be satisfied.

Clinton will no doubt try to use the West Virginia results to once again claim Obama cannot win white working class voters. In truth, any Democratic candidate — even if it was Clinton — would lose the vast majority of these voters to the Republicans (rural, white voters are, in fact, a good part of the Republican base).

Of course, West Virginia’s demographics are tailor-made for Clinton. At 94.1% white, it is more white than the likes of Montana and South Dakota; indeed, it is perhaps the whitest state in the nation. What few minorities exist are predominantly Latino, another Clinton strong demographic. There are few African-Americans. Moreover, it has a low percentage of college graduates — less than 15% of those 25 and older have a college degree (compared, for example, with another rural state like Montana, which has about 25%). And, at about $33,000 per household, it is also well below the U.S. average in income. And it is very rural, with no major cities. Indeed, West Virginia represents one extreme of America. It is no less extreme than a state that was 94% black, highly urban, well-educated and above-average income — demographics in which Hillary would also equally perform poorly. No doubt Obama must continue to appeal to rural, white working-class voters in order to build upon his already diverse coalition, but we should not exaggerate the impact of tonight’s results.