so, which is right: did her obvious demographic advantage with southern white christians get her the win, or does the unexpected closeness of the race suggest she's caving in key constituencies?
both.
forget about the east of the state. that's the jackass vote that's been brainwashed by talk radio into irrational clinton-hating. i mean, there's lots of reasons to not like clinton and everything, don't get me wrong here. but, none of those reasons suggest you support sanders if you're a rural, conservative kentuckian. that area will vote overwhelmingly for trump. it means nothing to sanders, his campaign or his chances as an independent - nor does it mean anything to clinton and whether she's holding her voters.
but, she should have won in the south by large numbers. she carried whites in tennessee by a substantial margin. and, she should have won in the suburbs around cinci, lexington and louisville; that's not coal country, it's basically ohio. also, note that kentucky is a closed primary, so she didn't get flooded with independents. she for real here got beat in one of her core demographics.
she did well enough in the cities that she can avoid going into crisis mode, but the results should nonetheless be very concerning to her campaign. all evidence suggests that if this vote was on super tuesday, she would have probably got close to 65%. what happens if you let them vote in july?