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Randolph County Registered Voter Count Sways From Blue To Red

Randolph County has more registered Republican voters than Democrats, at least for Wednesday.

Randolph County has more registered Republican voters than Democrats, at least as of Wednesday.

It’s been a Democratic stronghold since the Great Depression. But officials at the Randolph County Clerk’s office said the registered voter count on Wednesday was 6,242 Republicans, 6,238 Democrats, a difference of four. On Monday, the count was a difference of seven, again favoring the GOP.

One clerk’s office employee there said in her 17 years working at the Randolph County Courthouse, she’s never seen more Republicans registered than Democrats. She also said those numbers can fluctuate daily, depending on DMV registrations and other factors.

A local Inter-Mountain newspaper headline said “Randolph officially now a ‘red county’. In the article, Carolyn Jackson of the Randolph County Republican Executive Committee called this “truly an historic moment. It shows that people are coming around to the Republican way of looking at things.”

Randolph County Democratic Party Chair Cindy Stemple said the shifting numbers don’t tell who will actually go and vote.

“We aren’t really focused so much on those numbers,” Stemple said. “We’re focused on the good work that we’re doing, with the understanding that those numbers change on a daily basis. We’ve been trying to keep track of the people who vote or who have registered as Independents. I think that we need to factor in that as well.”

Stemple said the Randolph County Democratic Party is working to run a candidate in every race. She said she knows things will not change overnight and Democrats have challenges ahead.

“It’s a challenge to get people to run,” Stemple said. “I’m not minimizing that. But we have to start somewhere. I think things have changed over the past 30 years. We have to adapt to those changes. That doesn’t mean we’re going to change our inclusivity or our policies, but we need to find people who are brave enough to run, and we will give them all the support that we possibly can.”

Stemple says instead of red or blue, maybe Randolph is a “purple” county.

WVPB reached out to Randolph County Republican Party members for comment. We had not received a response by the time of publication.

Manchin’s Retirement Leaves A Statewide Void For Democrats

The retirement of U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin marks the end of an era, as Manchin is the last Democrat to hold statewide office in West Virginia. Sam Workman, director of the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs at West Virginia University, spoke to WVPB about what Manchin’s departure means for Democrats and what it would take to fill the void he’ll leave.

The retirement of U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin marks the end of an era, as Manchin is the last Democrat to hold statewide office in West Virginia.

Sam Workman, director of the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs at West Virginia University, spoke to reporter Curtis Tate about what Manchin’s departure means for Democrats and what it would take to fill the void he’ll leave.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tate: Can a Democrat still win a statewide office in West Virginia? What would it take?

Workman: I think the West Virginia that used to exist, where a Democrat talked a lot about coal, and especially coal families and what we were going to do for coal families, I don’t think that’s the West Virginia that exists. The West Virginia that exists is about recreational economy issues. It’s about health care. It’s about the manufacturing and the sort of energy projects we’re going to do in the western part of the state. And I think for a Democrat to win, they have to slot in those issues and be a little more forward looking than your standard, progressive sort of challenger to Manchin of recent times.

Manchin’s an older sort of politician who could kind of go at people with the elements of policy and whatnot. I don’t think that’s as viable a strategy anymore. I think the Democrats in the state really need to think about how their platform relates to the investments and the jobs that we have right now, not the ones we used to have.

Tate: Who steps in to fill the void Manchin leaves?

Workman: I’m going to give you a two part answer to that question. The first part is that looking to compare anyone to Joe Manchin, that gives them a tough road ahead, because Joe Manchin, in my lifetime, is the best politician. Now understand what I’m saying. Not saying that everyone agrees with him, rah rah. But as just a sheer politician, he’s the best politician the state has witnessed in my lifetime. I don’t think (Robert) Byrd or (Jay) Rockefeller could have held that seat as long as he did. He understands politics on the ground in difficult situations, probably better and has a better feel for it than anyone that I have come across on either side of the aisle, frankly. So that’s part one.

Part two is I think, no one steps up to the Democrats and fills those shoes in this election cycle. When we talk about the reemergence of the Democratic Party in West Virginia, I think you’re talking about something that is two, three cycles away, in terms of elections. Because we do have good sort of politicians at lower levels. If you take the state party chair, Mike Pushkin, a very prominent figure, in general does a good job of sort of navigating the waters of politics here on the ground. This guy (Zach) Shrewsbury, from my home county of Fayette County, he’s got a little more wind in his sails now with Manchin out of there. I still think folks like that run into the problem of sort of thinking about the West Virginia they grew up in and not the one that exists today. Steve Williams, the mayor from Huntington, he’s kind of a little late to statewide politics. But he’s fairly well known. He’s been a great mayor of Huntington. So there are people. I guess what I’m saying is there are people out there.

Tate: Gov. Jim Justice is likely the successor to Manchin. But he’s got to get through a Republican primary with Rep. Alex Mooney. Won’t that expose many of his vulnerabilities?

Workman: Sort of the godsend to the governor, if he gets through the primary, Manchin was no longer waiting on the other side, which he most certainly would have. And, as I think I may have said to you at some point before, each of those folks would have been the best politician the other has ever faced, for certain. So it’s very hard for me to see the governor not getting through the primary. And that’s not a statement about representative Mooney, he’s a very able, obviously very able and agile politician, because he took down Rep. (David) McKinley, largely in his own district. So Mooney has the acumen to make it tough. But the governor is so entrenched in the minds of the state.

He’s also entrenched in national Republican minds. The pandemic and the fallout from it gave the governor a lot of airtime and space and national politics. He was on all the big shows, at one point or another, talking about our vaccine programs, which were initially very successful, all this sort of stuff. But it’s very hard, barring health issues, barring financial or legal troubles, or something we don’t know yet. It’s very hard to see the governor – it would be a monumental collapse, I think, for the governor to lose this. I think Gov. Justice is probably our next senator and I just do not see in the span of one year, a Democrat making up all that space from such a low starting point for Democratic politics in the state. It’s very difficult to see that.

Tate: Joe Manchin is already a national figure, if not a household name. So what purpose would running for president as a third-party candidate serve for him?

Workman: I think it’s also the case that becoming a national figure may put him in a spot to take a cabinet position of some sort. I know if I were a betting person, I would say he would love probably to be energy secretary and have some measure of authority over how all of the money for energy transitions that he has secured, have some ability to direct those funds on the ground. So I think it comes from both believing that that middle was there, genuinely because it’s who he is. And it’s how he’s won. It’s how he’s built his political career.

But I also think there might be some angling here to be part of a presidential administration as a cabinet member or whatnot. So we all know, it’s almost structurally impossible for a third party candidate to win, right? Our elections are structured in a way that really prevents it. It’s why we’ve not really seen it.

Manchin Leaving Congress He Calls Divided, Yet Productive

Manchin announced last week he won’t be running for reelection to the US Senate. Speaking to a group of West Virginia reporters Wednesday, he says he’s leaving the chamber on both low and high notes.

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he’s never seen Washington more divided. And yet, he says the most recent Congress – the one that ended in January – was a productive one.

Manchin announced last week he won’t be running for reelection to the United States Senate. Speaking to a group of West Virginia reporters Wednesday, he said he’s leaving the chamber on both low and high notes.

“Everything that we did in the 117th Congress, which I think that’s 2020 to 2022, and then really finished up in January 2023,” he said. “But I think it will go down as one of the most, in history, one of the most productive Congresses we’ve ever had.”

There was COVID-19 relief, an infrastructure bill, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and a bill to help veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.

And it was all done in a Senate divided 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Manchin sometimes as the most critical vote of all.

Though he was a decisive vote on some of that legislation, and could single-handedly stop some of President Joe Biden’s nominees, Manchin downplayed his own influence.

“When you have an even split, it’s kind of hard for one side to blame the other. Because they’re equal,” he said. “They can equally have all the same power, no one has more power than the other person. One person can shut things down, one person can make things happen.”

Manchin will leave a chamber that could well flip to Republican control after next year. Democrats will have one less vote if a Republican wins Manchin’s seat, and that’s considered highly likely.

Manchin said throughout his time in the Senate, he tried to work across the aisle. He also said his staff closed more than 100,000 constituent cases. Those include basic services like getting veterans benefits or Social Security benefits.

Manchin has been hinting that he might pursue a third-party bid for president. But Wednesday, he didn’t make any specific commitment to run.

50 W.Va. Lawmakers Sign Letter Endorsing Donald Trump

A letter addressed ‘To the people of West Virginia’ has dozens of members from the West Virginia Legislature endorsing former President Donald Trump in the 2024 republican primary.

“As president, Donald J. Trump fought for conservative republican principles,” the letter states. “Trump is the proven candidate best capable to govern our country.”

The letter is signed by 40 members of the House of Delegates and 10 senators, making up a bit less than half of the republican majority members in the two bodies. Trump endorsements in the letter include Senate Finance Chair Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, Senate Education Chair Amy Grady, R-Mason, and House Majority Leader Eric Householder, R-Berkeley.

Notably absent from the letter’s list are Speaker of the House Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay and Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley.

The letter and endorsement effort was written and organized by Del. Josh Holstein, R-Boone. Holstein said he received a communication from the Trump campaign about doing something from West Virginia that was supportive of the former president’s run for reelection.

“I said I’d like to do some legislative endorsements,” Holstein said. “I think we could get a significant number. So I started calling around. It’s a very mixed group. There’s a lot of leadership. There’s a lot of people from different areas of the state.”

Holstein thinks the impact of the letter shows a strong support for the former president. He said it’s a channeling of what most constituents already feel. Trump was the overwhelming West Virginia winner in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.

“Our constituents are very supportive of him and his agenda,” Holstein said. “I just think that this reinforces that we answer to them, and we speak for them. I think this is one of the ways that we can do that appropriately.”

Holstein said the election and campaign cycle never really stops anymore, and putting out this letter, months ahead of a crowded republican presidential primary, becomes part of ‘the smooth flow of information.’”

“It’s important for candidates to get out early and get their feet in the water,” Holstein said. “I think that’s the reason we’re seeing so many presidential candidates, including the former president jump in so early, and that’s the reason we wanted to make a statement, as well.”

Del. Josh Holstein, R-Boone.

*Credit: West Virginia Legislature*

The West Virginia primary will be held on May 14, 2024.

W.Va. State Lawmaker Elliott Pritt Switches From Dem To GOP

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.

ACLU, Citizens Request Lawmakers Work More On Bill For Data-Gathering Fusion Center

This is a developing story and may be updated.

As lawmakers consider a bill to establish the existing West Virginia Intelligence Fusion Center in state code, civil liberty advocates are calling on the Legislature to use this as an opportunity to add more privacy and civil liberty protections for West Virginians.

The West Virginia Intelligence Fusion Center dates back to 2008, when then-Gov. Joe Manchin signed an executive order authorizing a group to gather and evaluate information on threats of terrorist activity for state and federal agencies, most prominently the Department of Homeland Security.

Since then, the group has existed through executive orders from the governor’s office. By proposing the center to be added to state law through House Bill 4176, some lawmakers have said at previous committee meetings they hope the West Virginia Fusion center will operate under more oversight.

Nationally, fusion centers were established by an executive order from President George W. Bush following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, to investigate potential terroristic threats. Today, fusion centers exist in all 50 states.

Cabinet Secretary Jeff Sandy from the West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety (DMAPS) spoke highly of fusion centers at a public hearing for House Bill 4176 Thursday morning, hosted by the House Judiciary Committee. Delegates were scheduled to hear and vote on whether to pass the bill to the full House Thursday afternoon after 3 p.m.

DMAPS currently oversees the state fusion center.

“That executive order forming the fusion centers across our country has saved American lives,” Sandy said. “Why? Is it because of the word ‘fusion center’? It is not. It is because fusion centers brought people together.”

Since then, Director Joseph Cohen of the American Civil Liberties Union in West Virginia said the center’s mission has morphed from monitoring terrorist threats to investigating all kinds of crime.

Cohen also attended the public hearing on Thursday. He argued that the Legislature should study the proposal rather than rush into passing a bill that would change state code.

“Slow down, have a real opportunity to bring in the experts on this stuff. If we’re going to have a fusion center, let’s do it right,” Cohen said at the public hearing.

Cohen cited a study in 2012 from a U.S. Senate subcommittee on investigations in which bipartisan group of lawmakers learned fusion centers weren’t yielding significant information for counterterrorism efforts.

After 13 months of reviewing reports from fusion centers that were submitted to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2010, senators said they “could identify no reporting which uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist plot.”

Robert Cornelius, a recently ousted Wood County Republican Chair, said Thursday he believes the West Virginia Fusion Center is being used to spy on political opponents, himself included.

“I’m a longtime critic of our current governor,” Cornelius told delegates at the public hearing. “As chairman of the Wood County Republican Committee, our group voted unanimously to support his impeachment, of the governor, in June of 2018, citing his refusal to attend work.”

Cornelius said he learned a month after that decision that there were pictures of himself at a security guard shack for the Columbia Gas building in Kanawha City, with a notice to call the fusion center if guards recognized him on the property.

This is what prompted Cornelius to post on Twitter in 2019 about the fusion center. Cornelius said in July he received a file of information regarding himself collected by the fusion center. He said his wife, who works in the state Capitol, was handed the information by the governor’s general counsel, Brian Abraham, even though Cornelius insisted the governor’s office had his contact information.

“There’s a greater issue with internet and electronic surveillance by the current executive,” Cornelius said, referring to the governor. “Of his employees, state employees and citizens more generally. Beyond concerns with fusion [centers], I would encourage those interested in our civil rights to examine the current and former roles of employees, the governor’s senior staff, and the scope of duties and activities.”

Fusion center officials disputed claims from Cornelius Thursday morning. That included DMAPS Cabinet Secretary Sandy and his deputy secretary Thom Kirk, who has experience direction the West Virginia fusion center.

“One of the things that we do at the fusion center is, any information that comes in there is vetted, to see whether it’s factual or not,” Kirk said. “I can tell you that if that is what Mr. Cornelius said, that’s false. I can bet that right now. He, to my knowledge, has never been investigated by the West Virginia Intelligence Fusion Center.”

Earlier this year, the governor requested an additional $1.9 million from the Legislature to fund a Narcotics Intelligence unit that would operate under the state fusion center, as well.

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.