Eastern Kentucky’s struggles fuel Senate battle

Joe Bart Watts was mining coal 3 miles in a mountain when his house burned down last summer. Over the next year, Harlan Cumberland Coal cut his hours, laid off 200 workers and he had to move in with his mother.

In this sparsely populated swath of eastern Kentucky, it is voters like Watts who have become the prize in what has become a battleground area in one of the country’s most watched U.S. Senate races.

“This year has been the worst, I think, for coal mining for us as...