CHARLESTON, WV – Though the Republican presidential primary race went from a thrill-a-minute nail-biter to a foregone conclusion a week ago, the political process continues to chug along, just as the Founders intended. On May 10, the latest Tuesday night primary state to take center state was West Virginia – the heart of Coal Country. There, presumptive GOP nominee won what is now a beauty contest (and he also won in Nebraska, where the Democrats already voted two months ago).

On the Democratic side, which has now become the dogfight of the presidential season, democratic-socialist Bernie Sanders racked up yet another state, beating frontrunner Hillary Clinton to bolster momentum in his grassroots campaign. Sanders hopes to carry the momentum into the July convention, where he plans to appeal to superdelegates to change their allegiance from Clinton to him. At this time, Clinton has about 14 times as many superdelegates as he does.

Clinton found herself in trouble last week when a coal miner confronted her for her comments that “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners out of business” as a result of clean energy policies. Her response was that those policies are already in effect, and she was stating an inevitable reality, and pointing out that she is the only candidate who won’t leave miners out in the cold.  Her likely fall rival, Trump, donned a miner’s hat and promised to keep miners at work in the Mountain State.