This third edition of West Virginia Politics and Government offers a recent study of the changing dynamics of politics in the Mountain State. Since the publication of the second edition, West Virginia has gone from marginally blue to definitely red in both state and national elections: once a Democratic Party bastion, in the 2016 election Donald Trump carried West Virginia with one of the widest margins among the states he won. Economically West Virginia is also undergoing significant change as it moves toward a post-coal economy and an uncertain path of future development.

The state's rural nature highlights some of the challenges involved in providing government services, promoting community development, fostering access to health care, and delivering public services in places that have seen population decline and economic distress. Combining new empirical information about political behavior with a close examination of the capacity of the state's government, this edition is a comprehensive and pointed study of the state's ability to respond to the needs of a largely rural and relatively low-income population.