W.Va. Politics Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

7th Senate District Race Preview – Stuart Vs. Stollings

The contested race for the newly formed 7th Senate District seat pits a veteran legislator against a well-known newcomer.

The contested race for the newly formed 7th senate district seat pits a veteran legislator against a well known newcomer.

Former federal prosecutor Mike Stuart was State Republican Party Chair and 2016 West Virginia Trump Campaign Co-chair. He said his opponent doesn’t reflect the values of their Boone, Lincoln, Logan and Kanawha county constituents.

“We’re a conservative district and people who value pro-life, they want lower taxes, they value freedom, they value the right to own and bear firearms,” Stuart said. “These are tenants that my people hold dear, and the candidate (that) has been there for16 years is far from that record.”

Adult Medical Specialist Dr. Ron Stollings, D-Boone, said he’s religious, endorsed by the NRA, and pro-life, but the state abortion bill went too far. The 16 year senator said transitioning from a coal economy requires dedicated funding.

“Getting more coal severance tax back to the county of origin, getting a tax credit if you locate a business on a post mine land site.Those are things that can now go through fruition, because we now have the bipartisan infrastructure plan that is made for places like my district, highly impacted coal areas,” Stollings said.

Stuart said he’ll fight for parents who need to commit their children to involuntary, long- term treatment for opioid dependence. He favors capital punishment for drug dealers.

“I support the death penalty,” Stuart said. “If you’re killing cops, if you’re carrying enough drugs, I support the death penalty for that.”

Stollings said public education needs a major overhaul and a return to funding for support programs.

“We have treated public education like it was a piece of gum on your shoe,” Stollings said. “We cut DHHR some $600 million, so those programs that help these disadvantaged kids, it’s coming back now to roost.”

Stuart said the state’s infrastructure has improved, but secondary roads in his 7th District remain deplorable.

“If that road in Tornado isn’t fixed, or that road in Harts Creek isn’t fixed, I’m going to be the guy standing there with social media saying, ‘Hey, get out here and fix this thing,’” Stuart said.

Stollings said diversifying the economy requires keeping promises like developing infrastructure along Corridor G

“The plan 25 years ago was to get infrastructure along U.S. Route 119,” Stollings said. “Particularly if you have these post-mine land sites that are now ready to be developed.”

Mike Stuart said he’s a street fighter with a sense of urgency.

Ron Stollings said far right MAGA people will cut taxes on the rich and cut services on the poor.

Senate 7th District voters will decide who will represent them next Tuesday.

Young Leaders From 2022 Mountaineer Boys State Speak Out On Issues

In its 83rd year, the American Legion’s Mountaineer Boys State has more than 200 West Virginia rising high school seniors who are learning political decision making this week.

Boys State replicates the judicial, legislative and executive branches of state government. The young elected leaders traveled to the State Capitol in Charleston Thursday, to meet with their real counterparts.

Will Behrens thought he’d run for a Supreme Court seat, then decided to go big or go home. Elected governor, Behrens – from Notre Dame High School in Clarksburg – said back home he and his friends don’t really talk about issues. He said at Boys State, people were voicing new concerns and perspectives.

“Talking about things like infrastructure, and the expensive cost of medicines like insulin,” Behrens said. “Along with the stigmatization around getting rehab for drug problems. It’s things like that I may never have even thought of.”

Elected Secretary of State, Berkeley County and Spring Mills High rising senior Samuel Stotler was put into the Nationalist Party. He said one of its pillars was renewable energy. Stotler led the stand for nuclear energy, deciding that by far, it’s the cleanest source.

“I actually just came from the Naval Academy summer seminar session last week,” Stotler said. “We actually spoke to their nuclear professor and he explained to us how this was, hands down, the easiest and most efficient and renewable source that we could possibly have.”

Behrens said being 17 years old is tough when it comes to taking action on political issues.

“We’re in an awkward spot, because we can’t vote and we can’t run for elected positions,” Behrens said. “So that’s why Boys State is a really important opportunity. Because all of these thoughts and opinions that we’ve been keeping for all this time, we can finally kind of put those into action.”

Stotler said discussing different viewpoints at a young age is teaching him what all governments need right now: compromise.

“We’re so polarized and nobody’s willing to give in, to stretch their point of view,” Stotler said. “Compromise is direly important to move forward and progress in society.”

The 2022 Mountaineer Boys State continues through the week at Jackson’s Mill in Lewis County.

Kennedy Visit During 1960 Primary Election In W.Va. Changed Politics

The 1960 Democratic Presidential Primary between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey was a watershed event in American politics.

Kennedy was the first, and so far only, Catholic president of the United States. He credited West Virginia, which is largely Protestant, for making it happen.

Author and West Virginia Wesleyan College Professor Robert Rupp explored this issue in his new book “The Primary That Made a President: John F. Kennedy and West Virginia.”

He spoke with Eric Douglas via Zoom.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Douglas: Why did you feel now was the time to delve into this story?

Rupp: I think it’s a story that hasn’t been told. This is the first book by a historian who has looked at that primary. It has become very influential. Kennedy and his advisors admitted that he had to win West Virginia otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have gotten the nomination and there would have been no Kennedy administration.

Douglas: The other big issue, or the supposed big issue, was Kennedy’s Catholicism. And he took it head on in the campaign. He didn’t sit back and wait for people to question him about it. He addressed it up front and repeatedly.

Rupp: But the interesting thing is, before West Virginia, he didn’t use a confrontational strategy. He would wait until someone in the audience would ask him a question. In West Virginia, out of desperation, he addressed it straight on.

Douglas: What can we learn from that today? Obviously, one of the two candidates for president right now, 60 years later, if elected, will be only the second Catholic elected to the office. Is that even a discussion today?

Rupp: Well, let’s go back to 1960. In 1960, if you were talking about the United States presidency, and who was going to be in the White House. It had to be a white adult, male Protestant. And so Kennedy had to challenge that. Even as late as 1959, almost 20 percent of Americans said they would never vote for a Catholic for president, even if that person was qualified.

What Kennedy did is he challenged that. He told America to open that door. And over the last 60 years, we’ve seen that door open sometimes. But as you said, the irony is Kennedy was the first, and so far the only Catholic who has been elected president. But at least he tore down that barrier.

Douglas: Today, I don’t even know that we stopped to consider that Joe Biden is Catholic. It’s not something that I think most people anyway even stop to consider.

Rupp: If we’re looking for encouraging news, what was part of American presidential politics in 1960, as you said, is not part of it now in 2020. We’re not considering it was an obstacle.

Douglas: What did West Virginia gain from the Kennedy primary? I mean, other than some national attention, both good and ill?

Rupp: Kennedy recognized that he owed a debt to West Virginia. No. 1. No. 2 this a person (Kennedy) who barely ever saw poverty before. And according to the stories and interviews, his time in West Virginia educated him about poverty. And the result is, during his administration, he was the best thing that ever happened to West Virginia in terms of funneling projects and money to help the state. We’re talking about I-79, we’re talking about road-building, we’re talking about the food stamp program.

Douglas: There was a huge discrepancy between the amount of money that Kennedy spent versus the amount of money that Humphrey spent, and that seems to have affected campaigns moving forward as well.

Rupp: The Kennedy campaign in the West Virginia primary contest forecast many of the features that we associate with presidential campaigns today. And probably one of the most disturbing was the amount of money spent. It’s estimated that the Kennedy campaign spent more than a $1 million dollars on this primary and Humphrey barely had a 10th of that.

This allowed Kennedy to outspend Humphrey. Humphrey had no TV ads. Kennedy had TV ads all over the place. Humphrey had virtually no organization, Kennedy set up organization in 35 counties and was fully staffed. Kennedy sent out 100,000 mailers or letters.

So yeah, one of the downsides, when it comes to the future of American politics, was the huge amount of money spent in this small state primary. It really forecast what was going to happen in the rest of the century and now.

This story is part of a series of interviews with authors from, or writing about, Appalachia.

Election 2018: West Virginia Supreme Court

Wesleyan Students Try To Predict W.Va. Primary

The upcoming senate race in West Virginia has drawn a big crowd of Republican contenders who are vying to face off on May 8 in the primary races. They’re competing for the Senate seat currently held by Joe Manchin, the long standing Democratic incumbent. A group of college students in a political science course at West Virginia Wesleyan College recently made their predictions for which Republicans they think will come out ahead in the primary senate race.

“We think it’s gonna be a really close race, mostly between Jenkins and Morrisey,” said 21-year-old Fairmont native, Hannah McCoy. She worked with a team of fellow students to research the senate race. Their final assignment is to predict which candidates will come out ahead.

“The polls aren’t very consistent right now. But what is consistent is there’s a lot of undecided voters. There’s at least 20 percent undecided voters in all five polls that we looked at.”

The paper McCoy and her classmates wrote is for a political science class, taught by political analyst Robert Rupp. They explored voting habits of West Virginians, and how social issues affect politics in the state.

Baltimore-native Katie Kennedy observed how politics in West Virginia play out very differently than what she’s seen in Maryland.

“We learned about the idea of personalism,” Kennedy said, “and how West Virginians don’t really rely on your credentials or your background in politics. They rely on the word of one another.”

“Family is another value that we looked at in West Virginia, and Jenkins highlights his wife and kids in all of his ads,” she added.

The students also considered how current events might affect voters this year.

“It’s really gonna come down to West Virginia values, the drug epidemic, and the West Virginia teachers’ strike, where Morrisey said that he would help to arrest the teachers and Jenkins publicly supported them. We think that will be a game changer between the two,” said McCoy.

This first group of students, made up entirely of young women, predicts that Jenkins will come out first, Morrisey second. The second group, comprised solely of young men, predicts that Don Blankenship will actually come in ahead of Morrisey.

“He flooded a lot of money into his campaign. He has a good campaign manager that’s well received in the state of West Virginia,” said Tyler Broadwater, one of the students in the all-male group. “And he has a lot of his own financial resources to put into the campaign.”

Broadwater’s team agree with the first group that Jenkins will likely win the primary. But they think Blankenship has gained a good bit of ground in the last few weeks.

“Initially we started out looking at different polls. And we initially found out that there weren’t a lot of polls that were done. And then, there were even fewer polls that were being done by nonpartisan groups. For example, we saw some polls that showed Jenkins highly favored, early on. But the polls that had Jenkins significantly ahead, we did a little bit of research and found that the polls that were being done were sponsored by Jenkins’ backers.”

This group also looked at how the Teachers’ Strike might influence this race, said Lawrence Rebelo. “Because even though they were supporting the Democratic party, this is still Trump Country. So they may vote for some Dems, but when it comes down to it, I think they’ll vote for Jenkins. Maybe, half of them, at least.”

Rebelo, who grew up in Preston County, admits that he’s a strong Democrat. But he was surprised to learn some things about the Republican candidates, including that Jenkins publicly supported the teachers.

His classmate, Broadwater, said the project has made him realize how important it is to do research before deciding how to cast your vote.

“I think this class has taught us a little bit about, not being skeptical, but understanding where the information’s coming from. And especially who pays for that information.”

Ralph Baxter Will Run for W.Va.'s First Congressional Seat

Wheeling resident, entrepreneur, and a Democrat Ralph Baxter announced Tuesday he’s running for office, challenging the incumbent Republican Congressman David McKinley in West Virginia’s First Congressional District.

Baxter grew up in the region the son of a steelworker and a secretary. But he’s known in the Northern Panhandle for relocating his law firm Orrick from San Francisco to Wheeling back in 2001. He announced his bid today from the law firm he led for almost 25 years.

“When I stood here in 2001 there was a tree growing out of the middle of this building, today it is home to hundreds of good-paying West Virginia jobs, and has spurned growth in other businesses throughout Wheeling,” Baxter said.

“Much like me when I first ran for Governor in 1988, Ralph is entering public service a businessman, not a politician,” said former West Virginia Governor Gaston Caperton in a press release. “That background served me well in bringing common sense to Charleston, and it will help Ralph do the same in Washington.”

Baxter said he’s a proven job-creator and his goal as a representative would be to continue to focus on jobs, and shaping a new, economically viable future for the region.

“We can continue to elect the same old politicians to try to turn the clock back to the 1950s” Baxter said. “Or, we can take control of our own destiny and our own government, and look forward to the future. I believe it is time for a change, and I believe I can be the person who brings change to our district.”

Ralph Baxter and his wife Cheryl live in Wheeling and are parents of four adult children.