Some industries have political impacts way beyond their numerical size would suggest. Farming is one such. Coal was in the UK and seems to have been for the US

Some industries have political impacts way beyond their numerical size would suggest. Farming is one such. Coal was in the UK and seems to have been for the US - Trump won votes appealing to people who had never even seen a mine let alone been down one. But they will vote to support the miners in the same way Idaho is won by supporting farmers. Yes Clinton won the popular vote. No unions are ridiculously under represented in the States (you need to fix that BTW) But in the end seem from this side of the pond this was a political message - coal mining was a proxy for "proper American jobs for proper Americans without all this economics and climate change nonsense" And that has a fairly sizeable base. Whether trump will find that same base happy to swallow a similar message now he is the incumbent remains to be seen.