go right into the states that will be disproportionately affected by the green energy dream and you include them as part of the solution and you invest in them as if your life depended upon it because it does. that was democratic presidential candidate kirsten gillibrand on saturday in new hampshire talking about the importance of investing in coal miners. her comments come just days after nearly 600 coal miners were suddenly left without work. and now the coal miners union is inviting the 2020 democratic candidates to come on an underground tour and hear from workers. the union says if democrats want to get back many who have deserted the party in the last several elections, it is coal miners who they need to win over. joining us now with more on that, nbc news correspondent heidi przybyla. heidi, what did you find out? hi, mika. this is really unusual. this is the first time that the coal miners have done this.
improved should be an opportunity for democrats in the next election. then lastly, let s look at the at what s going on in rural america. because again within the overall improvement in wages, there s a lot of divergence. this compares the wages in new york city to the wages in mississippi and what s been happening to them. the green line being new york city and the orange line is mississippi. again, real wages adjusted for inflation so you can see throughout this period, they were basically following a similar kind of trajectory. since the middle of 2016 they have diverged so wages in new york city are now up 5% relative to where they were in 2016. wages in mississippi are now down 3.3% relative to where they were in 2016. this is a picture that is being repeated all over rural america. democrats are not going to carry mississippi. why? why in rural america do they plunge? because the good jobs the new jobs that we have been
flashy. not having viral moments like some of the other candidates have. she s doing the work and now showing up in the polls and in the fund-raising. we were worried and concerned that she was burning through the cash in the early part of the campaign and she couldn t last this long. i think what we see in some ways that cadre, that organizing public that bernie sanders had. right? that those folks who were always already engaged are now really looking to her, looking towards her and looking towards him. i mean, she didn t outraise him by a significant number. i think what we see across those numbers is a real excitement among the democratic base. about $95.1 million total, right, divided among all of them. so we see an excitement among the democratic base. what they re going to choose, who they re going to choose is going to be interesting coming down the pike. there s also, willie, a strong message in elizabeth
creating are the so-called intellectual growth industries. tech, things like that. health care. those are concentrated in big cities. and secondly, as you know there s been a trend among particularly younger americans to want to be in cities, to be in real cities where a lot of things going on and rural america has been totally left behind and actually totally left behind in the south more so even than the rest of the country. again, democrats play not carry the south, but there are the pockets of voters out there that democrats ought to be able to get. gene robinson, even as we have this conversation the president is tweeting. the top line very good numbers on the economy, much potential for growth. he goes on to talk about trade deals being negotiated and how he s changing our relationship with countries that he says have treated us unfairly. he will point to the unemployment rate. he ll point to the stock market. a lot of figures he can point to and say look at how well we are doi
be celebrating too early when his numbers were so low, especially in the other states. because you were talking about the fact that more likely than not donald trump is going to do very well in 2020 because we re looking at the individual states. doesn t matter if the democrats pick up a million more votes in california or new york or just lose by three votes in texas. it s still bad news. then the next day of course the polls came out that showed among registered voters with trump at 47%. lay out for us if the dangers for democrats who think that this race is going to magically fall their way. well, joe, i m not predicting that donald trump is going to do very well in 2020. i think it s likely to be a very close, competitive election. but the but dave, by very well, what i mean is much better than at times democrats have expected over the past two or three years