2016 elections Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

WVPB Live Coverage of the Second Presidential Debate

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton go head-to-head in the second presidential debate Sunday night. The town hall-style debate will allow audience members to ask Trump and Clinton questions. West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WVPB) will provide extensive coverage of the debates our statewide TV and Radio networks, and online and wvpublic.org. Coverage begins at 9 p.m. EDT.

SCROLL DOWN FOR LIVE VIDEO AND ANNOTATIONS

On TV – WVPB will air PBS NewsHour’s special debate coverage; Join Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff for the full debate, plus analysis from Mark Sheilds, David Brooks, and Amy Walter. You can also watch via Youtube in this post.

On Radio – All Things Considered’s Robert Siegel will host Special Coverage of the events as well as post-debate analysis and fact-checking. You can also listen via our online radio stream.

Online – NPR’s politics team will be live annotating the debate, with help from reporters and editors who cover national security, immigration, business, foreign policy and more. Portions of the debate with added analysis are highlighted, followed by context and fact check from NPR reporters and editors.

The live annotations will be available below; visit wvpublic.org for additional coverage of the debate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcNyCmBTJCY

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WVPB Live Coverage of the First Presidential Debate

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton go head-to-head in the first presidential debate Monday night. WVPB will provide extensive coverage of the debates on TV, Radio, and Online. Coverage begins at 9 p.m. EDT.

SCROLL DOWN FOR LIVE VIDEO AND ANNOTATIONS

On TV – WVPB will air PBS NewsHour’s special debate coverage; Join Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff for the full debate, plus analysis from Mark Sheilds and David Brooks. You can also watch via Youtube in this post.

On Radio- All Things Considered’s Robert Siegel will host Special Coverage of the events as well as post-debate analysis and fact-checking. You can also listen via our online radio stream.

The live annotations will be available below; visit wvpublic.org for additional coverage of the debate.

Will W.Va. GOP Nightmare Come True?

This is perhaps the West Virginia GOP’s worst nightmare – waking up May 11 to newly-elected Supreme Court Justice Darrell McGraw.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. When the GOP took over the state legislature last year, one of their biggest reforms was to make judicial elections non-partisan.

But since the election is decided in one vote, during the primary and without a runoff, the controversial former Attorney General could be elected with only a small plurality of votes.

“Whoever has the most on Tuesday will win, even if it is just 21 percent,” said Laurie Lin, conservative columnist, on The Front Porch podcast.

She said Republicans disarmed themselves at the very time when being a Republican was becoming a plus.

“I think there’s a lot of private griping in the Republican Party about why, why did we do this?” she said.

On this week’s podcast, liberal columnist Rick Wilson agrees with Lin that doing away with partisan elections for judge was a mistake. But they’re not sure the Legislature will revisit the law, since many incumbent judges support it.

Also on this show, we talk about the race for Governor, and what happens after the primary.

“Whoever the Democratic nominee is going to be dogged constantly by, ‘Do you support Hillary Clinton?’ Trump is going to be very popular in this state,” Lin said.

However, she said, “It will be harder for Jim Justice to be made out to be anti-coal. The guy owns a bunch of coal mines.”

“Another factor will be, how did you like what happened or didn’t happen in the legislature last session,” Wilson said. “Will you remember in November?”

Subscribe to “The Front Porch” podcast on iTunes or however you listen to podcasts.

An edited version of “The Front Porch” airs Fridays at 4:50 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s radio network, and the full version is available above.

Share your opinions with us about these issues, and let us know what you’d like us to discuss in the future. Send a tweet to @radiofinn or @wvpublicnews, or e-mail Scott at sfinn @ wvpublic.org

The Front Porch is underwritten by The Charleston Gazette Mail, providing both sides of the story on its two editorial pages. Check it out: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/

State Election Commission Reviews Objections to Campaign Contributions

The State Election Commission, led by Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, has taken up objections to individual contributions for Supreme Court candidates seeking public campaign financing.

The commission reviewed 155 challenges to contributions to Justice Brent Benjamin’s campaign Wednesday. Those challenges all came from his campaign opponent Beth Walker.

Benjamin is attempting to obtain state public campaign financing for his 2016 re-election bid. The statute creating Public Campaign Financing requires that at least 500 contributions of $100 or less be gathered by candidates before they are eligible to receive the nearly $500,000 in additional funding from the State Election Commission.

2012 was the first year that candidate for the Supreme Court could apply for this public funding, but the only candidate to file, now Justice Allen Loughry, did not have any challenges to his contributions.

Secretary of State Natalie Tennant said because there is no precedent is important that the commission gets it right.

“This is very important. Public financing is so important for the state of WV,” Tennant said. “Here we have to opportunity again to elect a Supreme Court justice under the public financing system that we have. We already have a sitting justice who was elected using public financing. I personally think as a citizen of WV, as the Secretary of State, I have seen the benefit of public financing.”

The State Election Commission will meet again Thursday to discuss an additional 365 challenges to the Benjamin campaign’s contributions.

WVPB's New Debate Policy

The governing board of West Virginia Public Broadcasting has approved a policy to determine which candidates will be included in future debates.

The policy comes after the 2014 election season, when West Virginia Public Broadcasting co-sponsored a U.S. Senate debate that invited only the Democratic and Republican candidates. WVPB later sponsored a second debate that invited all five candidates on the ballot, but the leading candidate, Republican Shelley Moore Capito, did not attend.

The Educational Broadcasting Authority voted unanimously to approve the new policy, which says that candidates need reach 5 percent or more in an independent poll before being invited to a debate; and/or that candidate’s party must achieve 5% of votes for the same office in the preceding election.

The goal is to make sure WVPB has the time to go in-depth during the debates, and get more complete answers from the candidates most likely to win election.

WVPB remains committed to covering all registered candidates for races and making sure their ideas and voices are heard through other avenues.

Below is the entire policy, as passed:

WVPB Candidate Inclusion Rules and Selection of Races to Cover

Consistent with FCC regulations and Supreme Court rulings, we have adopted specific standards for candidate inclusion in a debate. Under our practices, candidates must:

1. Register as a candidate and have their name on the official ballot

2. Actively campaign through personal appearances, policy papers, and media releases

3. Actively raise money and submit campaign finance reports to the state

4. Achieve a polling standing of 5% or more in independent media polls, and/or

5. Candidate’s party must achieve 5% of votes for the same office in the preceding election

Our goal is to have debates that allow for in-depth answers among the candidates most likely to take office. These standards have been intentionally made less stringent than the Supreme Court has ruled acceptable.

We will cover competitive US Senate and House races, state constitutional offices, ballot issues, and a few key races likely to swing control of the State Senate or House of Delegates.

We do not generally cover races where the polls predict a lopsided result. These are decisions based on limited station resources and airtime.