Sanders leads Clinton 57-29 in West Virginia

If this new poll from West Virginia is even close to correct, it is big news.

The survey by REPASS Research has Trump with 40 percent compared with 20 percent for his nearest rival, Texas Senator Ted Cruz. On the Democrat side, Sanders leads Hillary Clinton by nearly two-to-one, 57 percent to 29 percent.

You can read the complete poll here.

The survey was conducted between February 11-16, before the South Carolina Republican primary and the Nevada Democratic caucus.  Trump won the South Carolina primary while Clinton was victorious in then Nevada caucus.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton crushed Barack Obama all across Appalachia. She won West Virginia in particular by 67-26.

This is also consistent with polling showing Oklahoma recently competitive, and the Sanders campaign is sending resources to Oklahoma.

Clinton is very likely to win many heavily African American southern states that Barack Obama won in the 2008 Democratic primary, like South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. In order to win the nomination, that means that Sanders needs to win in some areas that Clinton won in the 2008 primary.

In order to win the nomination, Sanders will need to win across a lot of the Northeast, Midwest, and West:

Rough benchmarks for how Sanders needs to do across different states to win the nomination, from my Democratic primary model

And so if he can win in Appalachia, that is a big part of the difference Sanders needs to make up.