The Republican supermajority in West Virginia’s House of Delegates became more lopsided Monday after Del. Elliott Pritt switched from the Democratic Party, the state’s GOP leader said.
The Republican supermajority in West Virginia’s House of Delegates became more lopsided Monday after Del. Elliott Pritt switched from the Democratic Party, the state’s GOP leader said.
Pritt, a teacher, is in his first term after defeating a Republican incumbent in the 2022 election.
“I want to welcome Delegate Elliott Pritt to the Republican Party,” West Virginia Republican Party chairwoman Elgine McArdle said in a statement. “Like so many West Virginians, Delegate Pritt has recognized that the Democratic Party of today is not the Democratic Party that our parents grew up with.”
The move gives the GOP 89 members in the House, while the Democrats’ ranks dwindled to 11. Pritt’s decision was already accounted for by late morning on the West Virginia Legislature’s official House roster.
Pritt had been the last Democrat in the House in the state’s southern coalfields.
The 34-member state Senate also has a GOP supermajority with 31 Republicans and three Democrats.
The move continues a Republican wave in the state that started a decade ago. After the 2014 election, the GOP took control of the state Senate and House from Democrats for the first time in more than eight decades.
Buoyed by criticism of former two-term President Barack Obama’s energy policies in coal-rich West Virginia, registered Democrats in 2014 fell below 50% for the first time since 1932. There are now about 456,000 registered Republicans, or 39.6% of all registered voters in West Virginia, according to the secretary of state’s office. That compares with about 372,000 registered Democrats, or 32.3%.
U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin is the only Democrat to currently hold statewide office.
The minority house caucus says many of the Republican supermajority’s proposed bills infringe on people’s constitutional and personal rights.
House Democrats held a “halfway through the session” press conference Wednesday morning. The theme of the presentation was what has NOT been accomplished to help the people of West Virginia.
The minority house caucus and Del. Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, especially, called this a “do nothing” regular session, saying the Republican supermajority’s proposed bills do nothing but infringe on people’s constitutional and personal rights.
“We have proposals that offer workers protections and teachers protections and better pay for our correction officers and our school service personnel who need it,” Fluharty said. “We have bills that expand mental health resources and access to clean water, but those bills don’t see the light of day.”
Democratic delegates said legislators are more focused on putting guns in classrooms than teachers in classrooms. They voiced concerns over supermajority bills they say would defund the police and make it easier to reverse local anti-discrimination ordinances.
House Minority Leader Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, said Republican priorities are skewed at best.
“What have we done to fix our roads, public education, mental health in this state, PEIA, foster care, help for our counties in need with the ARPA funds that were supposed to be designated to help them get back on their feet,” Skaff said. “What have we done to help our seniors? How many people out there on the campaign trail said we’re going to put more guns in the classroom, not teachers.”
Del. Joey Garcia, D-Marion, said many of the issues and bills that Republicans and Democrats do agree on do not get properly advanced.
“We agree on things like correctional pay raises, like trying to fix PEIA so that hospitals don’t stop accepting it like up in Wheeling – and we actually have bills that are there,” Garcia said. “I don’t understand the hesitancy to move those forward. We pass things through minor committees, and we’re waiting for Finance to take them up.”
Del. John Williams, D-Monongalia, said most of the bills all House of Delegate members agree on are not the “heavier lifts.”
“We had a bill passed yesterday that’s sponsored by one of our members that deals with economic development, opening up recreation to allow people to drink alcohol outside at fairs and festivals,” Williams said. “On issues like that there is some agreement. But when you talk about these heavier lifts, we had an amendment yesterday to give a child tax credit to every child in the state of West Virginia. Would it cost them money, but what is the real price of providing relief to families? It seems to be these bigger issues where we really deviate and can’t come to agreement upon.”
House Democrats finished by saying there are 30 days left to pass meaningful legislation to help all West Virginians.
According to the Secretary of State’s website, 18 people filed financial disclosures last year declaring their intention to run for governor against incumbent Republican Jim Justice. The official period to file just began in the state, and candidates have until Jan. 25 to get their paperwork submitted to the Secretary of State’s website. West Virginia’s primary election is May 12.
Independent producer Kyle Vass looks at some of the candidates running against incumbent Republican Jim Justice, who was elected a Democrat but switched to the Republican party only seven months into his term.
Part One: GOP
Normally, gubernatorial incumbents don’t have to worry about being challenged from within their own party. But with six republican candidates challenging Gov. Jim Justice in 2020, this race is anything but normal.
To understand why the incumbent governor, a Republican, has such a large field of candidates from his own party running against him, we have to go back to 2017, when Justice switched parties.
“It was unexpected. He had been such a down-the-line Democrat with Joe Manchin,” ousted Wood County GOP Chairman Rob Cornelius said. “No one knew what to make of it.”
Cornelius said he refused to start supporting the governor just because he switched to his party. In fact, Cornelius went as far as to go to newly elected State GOP Chairwoman Melody Potter. He wanted the state’s GOP leadership to distance themselves from Justice.
“Melody had pledged to me…that she would be an independent person. She would not sell out to the now-Republican governor,” said Cornelius, who recalled a conversation he had with Potter about Justice’s switch to the GOP. “She believed he was corrupt and would be a bad person to have in the party — that he was dangerous to our reputation, our morals and our standards, and she would have nothing to do with him.”
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting file photo
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice gives a speech during a Department of Tourism conference Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018, at the Morgantown Event Center.
Cornelius said he recorded his conversation with Potter, because he believed Potter would later change her story. And almost a year after this conversation, when Melody Potter accepted a large donation to the state GOP from Justice and his wife, Rob Cornelius uploaded the conversation to YouTube. Shortly after that, Potter issued a letter firing Rob Cornelius, in the interest of “effective organization and party harmony,” citing the state GOP bylaws.
Cornelius said his firing created a precedent in the West Virginia GOP: speak out against Justice or GOP leadership, and even an elected official could get fired. As a county chairman, Cornelius was elected, and just like that, he was gone.
He filed suit against Potter and the Secretary of State Mac Warner over his dismissal, and that case is ongoing. We reached out to Melody Potter, as well as Justice’s campaign, for multiple interview requests, but they had no comment.
Cornelius isn’t the only Republican official claiming to have been fired by Justice’s administration or GOP leadership for threatening the governor’s power. One of them is now running his own campaign against the governor — Woody Thrasher.
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Thrasher was Justice’s commerce secretary but was fired in 2016. Now he’s running the second-largest campaign in the Republican primary in terms of money raised.
According to Justice’s administration, Thrasher mishandled federal money earmarked for victims of the 2016 West Virginia flood. But Thrasher said the allegations aren’t true.
In terms of fundraising, Mike Folk is running the third-largest campaign in the Republican Primary. He’s behind Thrasher and Justice, who are number one and two, respectively.
Folk explained his platform is largely focused on taxes.
“Instead of going to the taxpayers for more money when the budget’s tight, I think we ought to do like every household in West Virginia has to do, which is tighten their belt,” said Folk, who argues that Justice is not being fiscally conservative enough.
“In 2017, when the current governor was new to office, he campaigned on being a businessman that could balance the budget without raising taxes. He instead proposed the largest tax increase in West Virginia history,” Folk said.
West Virginia Wesleyan College political science professor Rob Rupp said the way he interprets the crowded gubernatorial race, is that many people from both parties frankly have a hard time trusting Justice.
“Perhaps Justice himself is indicative of what’s happened to the breakdown a party labels,” Rupp said.
Having a Republican governor in West Virginia is unusual. But what’s really unusual, Rupp said, is that same governor having to defend his position from candidates who are claiming to be even more Republican than he is.
“He’s alienated the Democrats by leaving his party allegiance. And he’s distrusted by Republicans because of his recent conversion.”
Part Two: Democrats
Democrats in West Virginia find themselves trying to displace a Republican governor for the first time in two decades. And with U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin deciding not to come back and run for governor, a lot of questions remain as to might be able to take back the governor’s mansion.
Six Democratic candidates filed pre-candicay papers in 2018: Jody Murphy, Ben Salango, Cecil Silva, Edwin Vanover, Stephen Smith and Ron Stollings, who said he brings a lot of experience to the ticket with his three terms in the West Virginia Senate.
Another candidate, Kanawha County Commissioner Ben Salango, said he’s running because he wants to bring his economic development experience to the governor’s mansion.
“One of the main things that I’ve done, as Kanawha County Commissioner, is the Shawnee Sports Complex. It has brought in tens of millions of dollars in the sports tourism industry,” he said.
Both Stollings and Salango are very quick to distance themselves from Democrats at the national level.
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“I have a proven track record of being a centrist, more socially and economically moderate than our Washington, D.C., friends,” Stollings said. “I’m not far left, am a moderate Democrat. People call it a West Virginia Democrat.”
The term West Virginia Democrat refers to Democrats who tend to vote more moderately than most Democrats across the country, Rupp explained.
“In West Virginia when you’re a Democrat in an increasingly conservative state, you do what I call the West Virginia Democrat two-step, which is you’re taking a step away from the National Party.”
Rupp said West Virginian Democrats have become increasingly conservative during the past 15 to 20 years.
And then you have community organizer Stephen Smith, who is a West Virginian and a Democrat. But, don’t call him a West Virginia Democrat.
“What you see in West Virginia politics is either people sell their souls to big corporate interests and lobbyists and PACs, or they’re already a rich guy who’s made a bunch of money off the backs of other folks and they put their own money in the race,” said Smith, whose campaign raised a record breaking amount in small donations for a West Virginia gubernatorial candidate.
And, he sees his race for governor as just one race in the “West Virginia Can’t Wait” campaign he helped start. They’re currently backing 58 candidates in various elections around the state.
“What we need are candidates at every level of office and a politics that responds to everyday working people, not to the wealthy few. And we can have that government, but only if all of us come together and only if we stop waiting on some politician, any politician, to come and save us,” Smith said.
“Smith is really mobilizing Democrats getting a lot of small contributions,” Rupp said. “Usually in West Virginia politics, it wouldn’t work — that populist candidate makes a challenge, but usually doesn’t win. But of course, these are not usual times and Smith is not running a usual campaign.”
Rupp said he sees an identity crisis in both parties in West Virginia’s 2020 gubernatorial race.
“For the Democrats, it’s more strategic long range, where are they going to bank their future on the populist emphasis of a Smith, or a more moderate and traditional one? And the argument for the Democrats is not just about this election, it’s about the next three elections. And the Republicans are just saying how they want to stay in power.”
Democrats make up the bulk of signatures so far on a petition to let ex-coal executive Don Blankenship run in West Virginia’s U.S. Senate race as the Constitution Party’s nominee, preliminary data shows.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reported Wednesday that the Secretary of State’s Office had processed about 4,000 signatures, of which 45 percent were Democrats, 24 percent were Republicans and 27 percent were unaffiliated or from minor parties.
Blankenship’s campaign submitted 11,468 signatures. He needs 6,536 to qualify.
He wants to reverse a decision barring him from running under a law the state’s “sore loser law,” which prohibits unsuccessful major party primary candidates from switching parties.
Blankenship is a former CEO of Massey Energy, which owned a mine where a 2010 explosion killed 29 miners. He spent a year in federal prison for violating safety regulations.
Blankenship told the newspaper that he’s not surprised by the data. He said most signatures were gathered in Democratic areas of the state and show support of a U.S. citizen’s right to run for office, not necessarily him as a candidate.
“I think they’re signing it because they think that it’s proper that people who want to be on the ballot are on the ballot, and the fact that the Republican Party’s process didn’t put me on the ballot doesn’t mean that an American shouldn’t be on the ballot,” he said. “I don’t think it means they’re not supporting me or they are supporting me.”
Blankenship said he plans to file a lawsuit to challenge Secretary of State Mac Warner’s denial of his candidacy application. He wants to appear on the November ballot with Republican Patrick Morrisey and incumbent Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.
Grant Herring, a spokesman for Manchin’s re-election campaign, brushed aside the data, saying they will run a strong campaign whether or not Blankenship is on the ballot.
Morrisey declined to comment.
Democratic Party Chairwoman Belinda Biafore also declined to comment, though she said through a spokesman that the party has not directed any support toward Blankenship.
“Anyone who understands what our party is all about understands that we would never ask anyone to support Don Blankenship to have his name appear on the ballot in the general election,” she said.
Rep. Evan Jenkins’ dream of a U.S. Senate seat has opened a door for other ambitious West Virginia politicians, prompting a rush of contenders for his congressional seat and giving Democrats their best chance for a pickup in the Mountain State.
Eleven candidates are on the ballot in Tuesday’s primaries for the 3rd Congressional District seat Jenkins is vacating, including six current or former state legislators.
Democrats controlled the seat for nearly 40 years under Nick Rahall, who was defeated by the Democrat-turned-Republican Jenkins in 2014. Now four Democrats want to turn that red seat blue, and seven Republicans want to keep it GOP.
West Virginia Wesleyan political history professor Robert Rupp said the 3rd District will be the Democrats’ best chance to pick up a U.S. House seat in West Virginia.
“We’re talking about an open seat now that Evan’s left,” Rupp said. “So that’s automatically attractive.”
The top fundraiser by far among Democrats in the race is state Sen. Richard Ojeda. Rupp calls him a “charismatic candidate” with a powerful story.
A retired Army major, Ojeda’s facial bones were broken when he was attacked at a Logan County political cookout days before the 2016 primary. Jonathan Porter of Holden, was sentenced to up to five years in prison after authorities said he hit Ojeda from behind with a pipe and brass knuckles, then tried to run him over with a pickup truck.
Ojeda defeated a Senate incumbent in that primary and won his seat that November.
This past January, Ojeda’s passionate Senate speech in favor of teachers foreshadowed the fight they would wage over pay and benefits. “When I said that a volcano was about to erupt, we are in that situation,” Ojeda told lawmakers.
West Virginia teachers ultimately won a 5 percent pay increase after a nine-day strike, and their success ignited similar teacher walkouts in other states.
“Ojeda not only made his opinion known, he made his presence known,” Rupp said. “Rather than just saying ‘I’m for the teachers,’ (he’s) there fighting for them.”
Other current state lawmakers in the 3rd District field are Democratic Delegate Shirley Love and Republican Delegates Marty Gearheart, Rupie Phillips and Carol Miller. Former Delegate Rick Snuffer is on the GOP ticket. Snuffer won the 2012 GOP 3rd District primary over two others before losing to Rahall in the general election.
Miller, a bison farmer, small business owner and daughter of the late Ohio Congressman Samuel Devine, raised the most money among the Republicans, doubling the hauls of Phillips and former state Republican Party Chairman Conrad Lucas.
Republicans are outnumbered by Democrats in every county in the 3rd District, which stretches from the Ohio River through the southern coalfields to the Greenbrier Valley. But when President Donald Trump overwhelmingly won West Virginia, he also won a majority of the vote all of these counties, some as high as 84 percent.
Rupp doesn’t see support for Trump or the GOP waning in West Virginia, but he sees an “era of uncertainty” among voters. Their misgivings about career politicians might mean voters are “ready to try something else, and that’s a national angst,” he said.
Congressmen David McKinley from the 1st District and Alex Mooney from the 2nd District are unopposed in the GOP primary.
The 1st District Democratic primary includes Keyser attorney Tom Payne, retired international law firm CEO Ralph Baxter of Wheeling and West Virginia University law professor Kendra Fershee. Federal Election Commission records show Baxter’s campaign has raised $623,000, 10 times more than Fershee. Payne has not submitted a finance report.
Mooney will face either Aaron Scheinberg of Hedgesville or former Hillary Clinton state presidential campaign director Talley Sergent of Charleston in the general election. Scheinberg’s campaign raised $534,000 through mid-April, compared to $256,000 for Sergent.
The nine-day teachers’ strike in West Virginia made headlines across the country, and some are wondering what the events mean for state’s political landscape. How did a widespread labor strike, a practice normally associated with Democrats, happen in a state that voted so heavily for Donald Trump?
We wanted to take a step back to explore how politics have been changing here over the past generation. West Virginia has been dubbed the heart of Trump Country, but politics here are anything but straightforward.
The strike wasn’t organized solely by Democrats or Republicans, or even union bosses. But some, like Angela Nottingham, a seventh grade social studies teacher from Cabell County, said the action changed how they plan to vote this year. Nottingham said she switched from Independent to Democrat after watching some Senate Republicans fight against the pay increase teachers were demanding.
“I know there are a lot of people out there that are Republican and kind of vote with their party. I think a lot of people are gonna look back at who supported them. And I really do think they, and the people around them, and the people they influence, will vote for the people who helped us out,” Nottingham said.
In 2016, President Trump received nearly 70 percent of votes cast in West Virginia.
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woman attending protests at state capitol on March 6 to rally for teacher raises in W.Va.
West Virginia has a Republican governor, and Republicans control both houses of the state Legislature.
And yet, more voters in the state are registered as Democrats than Republicans. In Wyoming County, for example, President Trump won 83 percent of votes, even though more than twice as many voters in this county are registered as Democrats, compared with Republicans.
Could Democrats gain back some ground in the Mountain State?
With the midterm election around the corner, we wanted to get a sense of where we’re headed, so West Virginia Public Broadcasting polled more than 900 teachers and school personnel in an anonymous, online survey. This was not a scientific poll designed by statisticians, but it did give us some interesting insights.
About half of the teachers we surveyed said they identify as Democrats, while nearly 30 percent said they are Republicans. A majority said they voted for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as their first choice for president in 2016.
A majority (36 percent) said they plan to re-elect U.S. Senator Joe Manchin. An overwhelming majority (97 percent) of those who live in the state’s Third Congressional District in southern West Virginia — the seat currently held by U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins, a Republican — said they plan to vote for Richard Ojeda.
Both Ojeda, who’s currently serving in the state Senate, and Manchin are Democrats. That is, West Virginia’s version of a Democrat.
A Different Kind of Democrat
Democrats in West Virginia held the majority in the state Legislature for more than 80 years. More than half of our governors have been Democrats. But, as political science professor Rob Rupp explained, the Democrats in the Mountain State have traditionally been a populist party, pro-labor and socially conservative.
Rupp, a professor at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, posited that three are three political parties in America: Republican, Democrat and West Virginia Democrat.
“And by that I mean you have kind of a hybrid party, a big tent where conservatives, moderates and liberals all joined,” unique to West Virginia.
Rupp has spent most of his career studying what he called “West Virginia’s slow motion realignment towards the red” in this state, and he said that shift has been happening for a long time. But, he argued, it rose to the surface about 15 years ago. President Bill Clinton was fairly popular here, but Democrats on the national stage since have failed to resonate with voters in this pro-coal state.
“And now [Democrats] are realizing that to many West Virginia voters, the national Democratic Party is out of touch with the state voters,” Rupp said.
This shift didn’t happen overnight. Rupp and other political scientists said one reason for the change is the declining power of unions. Labor has had a strong influence on politics here since the 1930s, and labor unions have typically sided with Democrats.
But in West Virginia, Democrats are far more conservative than the national party: They’re pro-coal, and they usually side with conservatives on social issues, like gay rights, abortion and immigration.
Rupp said now we’re seeing the breakup of that hybrid, West Virginia-style Democrat, a change that could have national implications. West Virginia may be a bellwether for rural America, and for the national Democratic party.
“And now with the loss of power was seeing a struggle between, should the Democratic Party turn left or should it turn right, now that it suddenly finds himself in minority.”
But with the recent teachers’ strike, some people are wondering if the Democrats, could stand a chance of regaining power in West Virginia. And what kind of Democrats could get elected? Ones that lean progressive? Or will they need to look more like the West Virginia Democrats of the past?
One example of the traditional-style West Virginia Democrat is state Senator Richard Ojeda. He’s running for Congress in southern West Virginia and he says he voted for Trump, but he’s been disappointed by the President’s performance. He strongly supports labor unions, and was one of the teachers’ loudest supporters during the recent strike.
But if Democrats like Ojeda want to take back power in West Virginia and across Appalachia, they’ll have to figure out one big question: how to bring back jobs to coal country.
Former coal miner Nick Mullins, who blogs at The Thoughtful Coal Miner, said liberals haven’t done enough during the past decade to appeal to working class voters in Appalachia.
“To be frank and honest [Democrats] need to come off of their moral high horses and come back down to the level of the working class,” said Mullins, a registered Independent from southwest Virginia, who said he didn’t vote in the November 2016 election.
“The working class needs help. We’re facing longer hours or stagnant wages. People aren’t enjoying life right now because they’re having to work so hard and long to just have a little bit of happiness in their lives.”
