Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey pulled up to the outside of Wallman Hall on Fairmont State University’s campus Tuesday night for a televised debate with Democratic Huntington Mayor Steve Williams — and a crowd of a dozen protestors shuffled out of the way.
As the red SUV pulled through, the protestors reassembled, chanting “Let Erika debate!”
The protestors were with Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Erika Kolenich, one of three third-party candidates West Virginia MetroNews did not invite to the debate.
Outside the debate hall, Kolenich pointed to Morrisey’s small primary margin and West Virginia’s general low voter turnout in promoting her specific policy proposals to voters.
“I have not run into many people on the campaign trail who aren’t ready for a third option,” Kolenich said.
Talking to WVPB after the debate, Williams pointed to an Oct. 8 Marshall candidate forum he attended with Constitution party candidate Marshall Wilson where all five candidates running for governor were invited. This time around it was the two front runners representing the two major parties.
“I wanted to make sure that I was able to have one on one time with Patrick Morrisey,” Williams said. “If [Kolenich] could have been involved, I wouldn’t have objected at all.”
The Morrisey campaign did not directly comment on the exclusion of third party candidates.
Kolenich attended a nearby public watch party at the university’s civic institute hosted at the student center. About twenty people attended the watch party, around a dozen of whom were the protestors. Kolenich held an informal half hour forum to discuss issues afterwards.