Paula Jean Swearengin Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Capito Stands On Record For Reelection, Swearengin Argues W.Va. Needs Greater Support

One of West Virginia’s two U.S. Senate seats are on the ballot this year as the GOP fights nationally to retain its majority in Washington, D.C. Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito has held this office since 2015 and is the first woman from West Virginia to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Facing her is Democrat Paula Jean Swearengin who has never held a political office but believes her ideas and experiences are exactly what the state needs in Congress.

Capito grew up in public service. Her father, Arch Moore Jr., was both a U.S. congressman and a governor of West Virginia. Capito said she learned from a very young age what it meant to be a public servant. But it wasn’t until she became a parent that she said she realized just how much she wanted to help people.

“I just felt like as a relatively young mother in West Virginia, I wanted to try to do that for the next generations of West Virginians – to participate, to be a part of the solutions instead of just carping about what was wrong and how I could have done it better,” Capito said. “Well, I was ready to try it myself.”

There are several issues Capito feels strongly about this year, but she said one of her top priorities is expanding broadband in rural areas. She said having dependable internet access is key to many of the challenges in West Virginia, especially right now.

“Now we see in light of COVID how important this issue is for healthcare, for education, for economic development,” she said. “And really, to keep our young people in West Virginia, it’s exceedingly important as well.”

Capito said she started the rural broadband caucus in the U.S. Senate and works across the aisle on the issue, including with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, from Minissota. If reelected, Capito said, she would continue to fight for broadband growth and access in the state.

Capito said the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic response has been a mixed bag. She thinks Trump should have been stronger on mask-wearing and provided clearer communication to keep people safe.

“If I had to do it over again, for him, I would have been much more concise, clear to the American people of what the dangers are, how you can be effective in fighting the dangers and be very honest with where we are at any given time,” she said.

Other important issues to Capito are healthcare access like telehealth and tackling the opioid epidemic by providing federal dollars to support those in recovery. Finding a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease is also an issue Capito said is close to her heart. She supports job creation and supports the coal and natural gas industries.

Capito said she thinks creating more jobs in West Virginia like manufacturing PPE, or personal protective equipment, could be great economic drivers for the state. She also said supporting small business growth is key to a healthy West Virginia.

“I think the small business aspects of West Virginia are critically important,” she said. “And so, to retain our jobs, to keep our creativity, we’ve got to find a way to keep our small businesses’ heads above water.”

All-in-all, Capito is hoping West Virginians will reelect her based on her dedication to the state and her accomplishments while in the Senate. Capito has supported efforts in providing federal funding to the state to support broadband expansion, substance use treatment, and infrastructure needs. She is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the chair of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and a member of the Senate Commerce Committee.

But facing Capito in November is Democrat Paula Jean Swearengin who thinks that Capito has done little to understand the real challenges faced by West Virginians.

“If you would have told me 15 years ago that I’d be the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate, I probably laughed at you,” Swearengin said. “I just got tired of begging and going on deaf ears, and I know a lot of West Virginia feels the same way. I’m not going for personal gain, it’s about survival for West Virginians.”

Swearengin’s overall message is West Virginia needs representation in Washington, D.C. from someone who knows first hand what it was like to have financial hardships or who knows what it’s like to live without clean water.

“Our water came out of an abandoned coal mine, and it was orange with a blue and purple film,” she said. “And we drank it. We bathed in it. We cooked with it, and I didn’t know until my stepdad got laid off in the coal mines that I wasn’t a redhead until I had access to clean water, and I found out I was a brunette.”

Swearengin was born in Mullins, West Virginia. She said she grew up in poverty and is the daughter and granddaughter of coal miners. Her grandfather passed away from black lung disease. Her father also had black lung disease, and he died of cancer.

Swearengin has never held a political office, but this isn’t the first time she’s been on the ballot for a seat in the U.S. Senate. She lost to Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin in the 2018 primary election. Now, she’s trying again, this time, as the Democratic nominee.

Swearengin describes Capito as “out of touch” and not serving West Virginians’ needs.

“Everybody doesn’t have to agree on everything, but their sole purpose should be serving the people that put them there, and that’s the people in the United States,” she said. “In West Virginia, we have been underserved, and it’s important to me that West Virginians have a seat at the table in Washington, DC.”

Swearengin said West Virginia has been abused for its resources and that West Virginians have had to pay the price, both in health and money.

She stands on issues like expanding broadband access but making it a public utility. She is supportive of the legalization and taxation of marijuana. She also thinks West Virginia needs to diversify its economy and support new ideas in areas like geothermal energy, hydro power, roads, schools, and adequate water and sewer systems.

“The possibilities for West Virginia are endless,” she said. “We can’t put our eggs in one basket anymore, and we definitely can’t put all of our eggs in the politicians that are visionaries for their pocketbooks and visionaries for our demise.”

Early voting starts on Oct. 21 and runs until Oct. 31.

The deadline for absentee ballots is Oct. 28. Election Day is Nov. 3.

Democrat Swearengin Announces Renewed Bid for U.S. Senate in 2020

Activist-turned-political candidate Paula Jean Swearengin has announced she’ll again run for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Swearengin made the announcement Tuesday on her campaign’s Facebook page.

As of Thursday, Federal Election Commission filings show Swearengin is the only Democrat that has jumped in the U.S. Senate race for 2020. She filed a statement of candidacy with the FEC in June.

Swearengin first ran for U.S. Senate in 2018 as environmentally conscious and an advocate for the working and lower class. She faced off against incumbent Joe Manchin in the primary election and lost, but pulled around 30 percent of the vote.

Manchin, a moderate Democrat, went on to beat Republican challenger and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in November.

Should Swearengin make it through the 2020 primary, she’s likely face incumbent Republican Shelley Moore Capito.

According to FEC filings, Capito has raised nearly $2.5 million for her current campaign. Swearengin, a newcomer to the race, has yet to file a financial report indicating fundraising for 2020.

Outmatched in Experience and Funds, Swearengin Remains Undeterred in Primary Against Manchin

Updated: Friday, May 4, 2018 at 12:00 p.m.

President Donald Trump won West Virginia by 42 percentage points in 2016. He’s holding on to high approval ratings in the state and conservatives paint Democrat incumbent U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin as vulnerable. Long known as a moderate Democrat, Manchin has been in West Virginia politics for three decades. With the seat up for grabs this year, the national spotlight has been on the GOP primary — in which hopefuls are trying to align themselves with Trump.

But this year, the Democratic stalwart in West Virginia politics faces his own primary challenger in progressive Paula Jean Swearengin — an activist-turned-candidate who says Manchin hasn’t done enough to retain the party nomination.

When the president visited White Sulphur Springs in early April, the stop was billed as a roundtable discussion highlighting the effects of recently passed tax-reform legislation. With GOP Senate hopefuls Evan Jenkins and Patrick Morrisey flanking Trump, the event veered toward attacks on Manchin and his no vote on the tax bill.

“The Democrats have a problem. I mean, look at your senator. He voted against. Joe — he voted against. It was bad. I thought he would be helpful,” Trump said at the event.

Overall, though, Manchin has voted with the Trump administration more than 61 percent of the time — including legislation and nominations, according to Senate records. He says he votes based on the issues themselves and what’s best for West Virginia.

“I say to the people of West Virginia you’ve hired me. I work for you. I do not work for the president but I want to work with him and I try every day and I will try,” Manchin said in a recent meeting with the media.

That record puts him at odds with the national Democratic Party. Manchin has voted against a majority of Senate Democrats 29.3 percent of the time in the 115th Congress, according to Propublica’s Represent, a web app that tallies congressional voting records. He ranks first among all senators in voting against his party — with the average Senate Democrat breaking against the majority of the party’s vote 10.1 percent of the time.

He landed in Washington after winning a special election following the death of Robert C. Byrd in 2010. Since then, Manchin has touted himself as willing to work across party lines to compromise.

“I don’t look at Republicans as my enemy, I look at them as my friends and my colleagues — and we’re all in this together. You’ve got to be able to find a pathway for it,” Manchin said. “For people to take a hard line on one side or the other — whether it’s the hard right or the hard left — you cannot get anything accomplished.”

But it’s those attempts to reach across the aisle and frequent voting with the Republican majority that is in large part what drew Manchin’s primary challenger into the race.

“He calls himself a West Virginia Democrat, but I’m not sure if he knows what that means,” said Paula Jean Swearengin, a native of Mullens, West Virginia who identifies as a coal miner’s daughter and coal miner’s granddaughter.

“The reason to take him on is because he’s not adhering to the platform of the Democratic Party and he’s not serving the working class,” she said.

After asking Manchin in person for help with the economy in southern West Virginia and to tackle environmental issues like water quality, Swearengin says she felt unheard and overlooked.

She took her pleas to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders when the Vermont politician made a stop last spring in McDowell County for a taping of a town hall on MSNBC’s ‘All In with Chris Hayes.’

“The reason that I went to go see Bernie Sanders is because I was begging him for hope. I mean, I’ve begged for this state for years and I admired him because he was the only senator to sit down with me and talk to me like I was a human being,” Swearengin said.

Swearengin is backed by Brand New Congress, a political action committee established by former staffers and supporters of Sanders’ campaign for president in 2016. The group is aiming to run progressive, working-class candidates around the country in hopes of combatting a political environment they say is dominated by big money.

“[The intent] of this nation was to have a diverse set of people in any and all walk of governments. It wasn’t designed to have paid-for, polished politicians to represent us. This nation was built by the people for the people and of the people,” she said.

Many say Swearengin faces an uphill battle to beat Manchin for the Democratic nomination. Beyond name recognition, Manchin’s fundraising efforts have outmatched Swearengin’s by more than 30 to 1. She’s raised nearly $200,000 to Manchin’s $6 million.

Swearengin remains undeterred. Despite identifying as a coal miner’s daughter, she’s hoping to take on the industry that she says has wreaked havoc on where she grew up and still lives.

“There’s no reason as a coal miner’s daughter that I should have to beg for something so basic as a clean glass of water. At the same time, we see coal miners that want to just feed their families. And we’ve heard that propaganda tree hugger versus coal miner. It’s even been labeled environmentalist before and that’s not it,” Swearengin explained.

“We we want it all. There’s no reason that we can’t have basic human rights and, like I said, we don’t even have adequate sewage systems,” she added.

After teachers across West Virginia went on a nine-day strike calling for better pay and benefits, many observers of state politics have wondered if the labor movement — one that caught fire in other deeply red states — can translate to a wave of wins for progressives.

But as May 8 nears, Manchin’s campaign is focused more so on November and his potential challenger in the midterm election.

“My approach is this: I don’t pick my opponents. They picked to run and choose to run against me. And whoever that may be, we’ll put our records up hopefully and try to get the facts out — as hard as it is in today’s toxic atmosphere,” Manchin said.

Unlike the race for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, state Democrats did not arrange debates between Manchin and Swearengin. West Virginia Democratic Party chairwoman Belinda Biafore said no media outlet ever contacted the organization to organize a statewide debate.