53%

According to exit polls, that’s the percentage of West Virginia voters in a Democratic primary that would support Barack Obama over John McCain. From Fox News:

Both Clinton and Obama beat Republican John McCain in general election matchups, Clinton by a much larger margin. But, when asked about a matchup between Obama and McCain, just 53 percent of voters today said they’d side with Obama — and he will need far more than that to be competitive here in November.

I appreciate the fact that Democratic partisans like Matthew Yglesias get frustrated by talk of electability, since this is an increasingly terrible year for the GOP; as Fred Barnes points out, they have good reason to be gloomy. But Obama can’t win without recapturing the Reagan Democrats (and, as the Clinton campaign says, since 1918 no Democrat has won the presidency without winning WV). Taking 99% of the black vote isn’t enough; Obama needs to pick off those white, working class voters Hillary does so well with in order to beat McCain.