GOP Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

GOP Maintains Firm Grip On Legislature In W.Va. Primaries

West Virginia voters did nothing to dramatically alter the makeup of the state legislature on Tuesday in primary election contests that seemed certain to leave Republican supermajorities in both chambers intact.

Some West Virginia incumbent Republican state senators won their respective primaries Tuesday night. Wood County Republican Sen. Mike Azinger earned a close win in his primary over Delegate John Kelly, Majority Leader Tom Takubo of Kanawha County easily defeated a GOP challenger while incumbent Mark Maynard of Wayne County won his three-way GOP primary.

Former Democratic Sen. Mike Oliverio of Monongalia County, now a Republican, and Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer will meet in the fall for a 13th District Senate seat after each defeated primary challengers.

Other Senate races remained undecided, including former U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart in the 7th District GOP primary against Chad McCormick of Yawkey; Raleigh County Republican Rollan Roberts against Delegate Mick Bates; and Owens Brown, the first Black man in the Senate, against former Delegate Randy Schwartzmiller in a Northern Panhandle district.

Another race with a narrow vote margin unfolded in a district spanning five counties and involved former Democratic Delegate Mark Hunt, ex-GOP Delegate Joshua Higginbotham and Mark Mitchem. A fourth GOP candidate, Andrea Garrett Kiessling, was disqualified from running after a successful challenge to her residency. The winner will go on to November to face Democrat Richard Lindsay, who ran unopposed Tuesday.

Senate Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin was unopposed in his Democratic primary and will meet another church pastor, Republican Vince Deeds, in November. Deeds defeated two others in his GOP primary in a five-county district in southern West Virginia.

Republicans outnumber Democrats 78-22 in the House, 23-11 in the state Senate and are looking to add to their supermajority this fall. There were no Democratic candidates in six of the 17 state Senate primaries and 27 of the 100 House of Delegates races. Overall, Democrats had contested races in just two Senate primaries and 16 House primaries.

Four senators, including three Democrats, did not seek reelection and eight others were unopposed in the primary. More than half of the House ran unopposed while 15 incumbents, including 10 Republicans, did not seek reelection.

All House of Delegates candidates ran in single-member districts because of a 2018 restructuring. Previously, some districts had multiple delegates. Because of redistricting, some incumbent lawmakers faced off in the primary in their new districts.

In a Democratic primary involving two incumbents, Delegates Ric Griffith and Chad Lovejoy were locked in a tight race in their Huntington-area district, as was Roane County incumbent Riley Keaton against Republican challenger Martin Atkinson.

Dr. Sydnee Smirl McElroy, who is a family physician and renowned podcaster, defeated Marshall University freshman Kate White in their Democratic primary in a district that includes parts of the Huntington area. McElroy will take on another doctor, Matthew Rohrbach, in November. Rohrach was unopposed in his GOP primary.

In another close race, Wood County Republican incumbent Roger Conley was battling challenger Bob Fehrenbacher. Fehrenbacher admitted he was not a registered Republican when he filed his candidacy papers, calling it a simple oversight. He changed his registration to the GOP after the mistake was pointed out and ignored calls from the state Republican Party to discontinue his campaign.

Two incumbent delegates with primary opposition, Democrat Kayla Young and Republican Larry Pack, also were in races too close to call.

U.S. Sen. Capito is Running for Reelection

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito is running for reelection.

The West Virginia Republican announced the 2020 bid Thursday in a radio interview and on social media.

A Facebook video accompanying the announcement touted her accomplishments and her good relationship with President Donald Trump. She says she’s running “to protect our West Virginia values of faith, family and freedom.”

Capito served seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before being elected as a U.S. senator in 2014.

She became West Virginia’s first female in the Senate and its first Republican senator in about 55 years when she won her seat.

Her father, Arch A. Moore Jr., spent 12 years and three terms as the governor of West Virginia in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

W.Va. County's GOP Committee OKs Resolution Against Gov. Justice

A Republican committee in West Virginia’s largest county has approved a resolution of no confidence in GOP Gov. Jim Justice.

The Kanawha County Republican Executive Committee says in a news release the vote Tuesday was for Justice’s “lack of support” of GOP principles.

Justice announced earlier this year he will seek re-election next year. Justice was elected as a Democrat, then switched parties in 2017.

Committee member Carolyn Stricklen says despite Justice’s support of President Donald Trump, “it is not enough to make up for the fact that he was not elected as a Republican and he has not governed as a Republican.”

Stricklen says education and transportation are the two biggest issues facing the state, and “Justice has not led as a Republican on either issue.”

A spokesman for Justice didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Governor Gives State GOP $20k, Has Tax Debts in Other States

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has donated a combined $20,000 to the state Republican Party while his family businesses’ have tax debts in neighboring states.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports Justice and his wife donated the money to the GOP last month. The party disclosed the contributions in a report to the Federal Elections Commission published Saturday.

The Lexington Herald-Leader quotes Justice in an Aug. 9 report saying he would pay down the $2.5 million he owes across at least five Kentucky counties as soon as possible.

Rick Randolph is an Albemarle County, Virginia, supervisor. He says it’s disappointing to see Justice making political contributions before paying on his back taxes and penalties. Justice owes roughly $226,000 to the county.

A Justice spokesman didn’t respond to the Gazette-Mail’s requests for comment.

Early GOP Primaries Shaping Up as Rightward March with Trump

As primary season kicks into high gear, Republicans are engaged in nomination fights that are pulling the party to the right, leaving some leaders worried their candidates will be out of a step with the broader electorate in November.

Primaries in four states on Tuesday, all in places Donald Trump carried in 2016, showcase races in which GOP candidates are jockeying to be seen as the most conservative, the most anti-Washington and the most loyal to the president. It’s evidence of the onetime outsider’s deepening imprint on the Republican Party he commandeered less than two year ago.

In Indiana, Republicans will choose between three Senate candidates who have spent much of the race praising the Trump and bashing each other. In West Virginia, a former federal convict and coal baron has taken aim at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., with racially charged accusations of corruption.

In Ohio, Republicans are certain to nominate someone more conservative than outgoing GOP Gov. John Kasich, a 2016 presidential candidate, moderate and frequent Trump critic. Even Kasich’s former running mate, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, has pledged to unwind some of Kasich’s centrist policies, including the expansion of the Medicaid government insurance program following Democrats’ 2010 health insurance overhaul.

With Trump’s job approval hanging around 40 percent and the GOP-run Congress less than half that, the abandonment of the middle has some Republicans raising alarms.

“The far left and the far right always think they are going to dominate these elections,” said John Weaver, a Trump critic and top strategist to Kasich, who has been become a near-pariah in the primary to succeed him.

“You may think it’s wise in a primary to handcuff yourself to the president,” Weaver said. “But when the ship goes down, you may not be able to get the cuffs off.”

North Carolina Republicans will weigh in on the fate of Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger, facing a primary challenger who almost upset him two years ago. Pittenger features Trump prominently in his campaign. Challenger Mark Harris, a prominent Charlotte pastor, has tried to turn the table, saying Pittenger is a creature of Washington who refuses to help Trump “drain that swamp.”

Tough primaries certainly don’t have to be disastrous. They often gin up voter attention and engagement, and can signal strong turnout in the general election.

Dallas Woodhouse, who runs the North Carolina Republican Party, said candidates benefit because they must “make their arguments and voters become more aware of the election.”

Trump and his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton each survived internal party battles in 2016. Clinton won the national popular vote that year, but in the states that mattered most — Ohio and North Carolina, among them — wary Republicans gravitated back to Trump while Clinton struggled to hit the usual Democratic base targets.

Few national Republicans look at West Virginia and see helpful enthusiasm.

Former coal executive Don Blankenship has accused McConnell of creating jobs for “China people” and charges that the senator’s “China family” has given him millions of dollars. McConnell’s wife is Trump’s transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, who was born in Taiwan.

Indiana Senate candidates are trying to appeal to Trump voters by adopting the president’s harsh immigration rhetoric and penchant for personal insults. The candidates have even channeled Trump by assigning derisive nicknames to one another: “Lyin'” Todd Rokita, Luke “Missing” Messer and “Tax Hike” Mike Braun.

In several of the Tuesday primaries, Democrats are watching with delight, and having less trouble aligning behind nominees. The chief beneficiaries would be Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, both sitting on healthy campaign accounts after avoiding their own primary fights.

The leading Democrat for the North Carolina seat, Marine veteran Dan McCready, has raised almost $2 million, slightly more than Harris and Pittenger combined, in a district Trump won by about 12 percentage points. “He will absolutely make this competitive,” Harris said.

In the Ohio governor’s race, liberal former Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former state Attorney General Richard Cordray have managed to avoid open warfare. Cordray, who also led the federal consumer watchdog agency launched under President Barack Obama, is the favorite.

Republicans watched their state party, led by pro-Trump leadership that replaced Kasich allies after the 2016 elections, endorse state Attorney General Mike Dewine, while Taylor has effectively shunned an earlier endorsement from Kasich.

“If Ohio Republicans are divided into Trump Republicans and Kasich Republicans, the Trump Republicans have won,” said the state Democratic chairman, David Pepper. “That helps us.”

Gallup measures Trump with an 89 percent job approval rating among Republicans nationally, but 35 percent among independents and 42 percent overall. Historically, presidents below 50 percent watch their party suffer steep losses in midterm elections.

Democrats must flip about two dozen Republican-held seats to reclaim a House majority, and they must do it with Republican-run legislatures having drawn many districts to the GOP’s advantage. In North Carolina, Harris said the makeup of the district, which stretches from Republican areas of metro Charlotte east through small towns and rural counties, makes his pro-Trump, anti-establishment message a primary and November winner.

Senate Democrats are just two seats shy of a majority, but must defend 26 incumbents, 10 in states where Trump won, including Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia. Republicans are defending nine seats, just one in a state Trump lost.

Crowded Field Seeks 3rd District House Seat in West Virginia

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.