At long last, time to reveal my big project: a look at the recent Democratic decline in Appalachia. I’m focusing on three presidential elections with non-incumbents over eight-year spans: 2000, 2008, and 2016. Before I get into analysis, here is the map of 2000.

Every county included within my maps is defined as being within “Appalachia” by the Appalachian Regional Commission. Though there are some noticeable differences between the counties and regions, they share a good deal in terms of geography and culture.

What you’ll notice from the 2000 map is that Al Gore held his own in some of Appalachia’s key regions. He did very well in Southwestern Pennsylvania, southern West Virginia, middle Tennessee (his home state), and eastern Kentucky, all regions that have since shifted towards Rs.

Now, here’s Barack Obama’s performance in 2008. In many places, he still hangs on, even winning a few counties in West Virginia. But the decline is noticeable almost everywhere, especially in eastern Kentucky, northern Georgia, and almost all of Tennessee.

Lastly, we have Hillary Clinton’s abysmal 2016 showing. Donald Trump got >70% of the vote in a huge bulk of counties. Clinton’s complete failure actually does more to show how excellent Obama was at winning working-class whites, especially in 2008.

Now that we’ve seen the maps, let’s do some analysis. One thing that stands out is the dramatic decline in West Virginia. Gore lost WV by about 6%. If he’d won it, the presidential election would have been his. Obama lost it by 12 in 2008, then Hillary by a whopping 42.

West Virginia was one of only two states where Hillary Clinton carried not even a single county, the other being Oklahoma. The biggest swing of any WV county from 2000 to 2016? Try McDowell County, which went from Gore+34 to Trump+51 over that period. Obama won it by 9 in 2008.

Eastern Kentucky is similar to West Virginia in that they both had a strong Democratic tradition of coal unions. Knott County went from Gore+36 to Trump+54, an even bigger swing. Even Democratic stalwart Elliott County went from Gore+29 to Trump+44.

Harlan County, Kentucky, is famous thanks to the documentary Harlan County, USA, from 1976. It’s an amazing film, and I recommend you check it out. Gore was the last Democrat to win it, carrying it by 3%. In 2016, Hillary Clinton didn’t even get 13% there.

Even in Hillary Clinton’s home state of New York (which was Trump’s too), she got trounced. She won only 1 ARC county—Tompkins County, home to Cornell and Ithaca College. Otherwise, her old stomping grounds outside NYC were a huge bust.

From looking at those maps, it’s hard to imagine Democrats improving anywhere. But they did. Note that in 2000, Al Gore didn’t win a single Georgia Appalachian county. That changed in 2008, when Obama won Douglas County, and in 2016 Clinton added Gwinnett.

Gore also flopped in Appalachian North Carolina; he also won 0 counties there. Obama nabbed four, and Hillary Clinton got three—including Buncombe County, home to the increasingly Democratic mountain town of Asheville, which Obama also won.

But Pennsylvania’s change is perhaps the starkest. First, note how well Gore did in southwestern Pennsylvania. Even Obama struggled to match his success. And Clinton got obliterated there. From looking at her map, you could hardly tell they were ever strongly Democratic.

Second, Allegheny County (home to Pittsburgh) barely moved at all. It went Gore+16 to Obama+17 to Clinton+16. That’s a problem for Democrats. Such a large city should be moving noticeably to the right. It helps explain Hillary’s narrow loss in Pennsylvania.

However, Centre County went Bush-Obama-Clinton, though Clinton won a narrow plurality. Centre is home to massive Penn State University, a Democratic stronghold in PA. But it doesn’t have quite enough votes to swing the election.

Clinton’s maintained margin in Allegheny and slight improvements in the PA suburbs weren’t enough to make up for her horrendous performance in SW PA, and in historically WWC Erie and Lackawanna Counties. In other words, Appalachia cost her this state.

I’ll conclude by saying this: no Democrat is going to win a majority of counties in Appalachia. But losing by 20 and losing by 50 makes a huge difference. Appalachia cuts through some of the most competitive states—Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania. Surviving there matters.

Gore didn’t win Appalachia by any measure. Neither did Obama. But they did OK. Hillary didn’t. Democrats can’t just write these places off because they seem difficult. Appalachia is a region in crisis, and a candidate with a real plan just may flip enough voters for victory.