The emblem of the West Virginia flag
West Virginia is holding a special gubernatorial election today. The race became necessary when the previous governor, Joe Manchin, was elected to the Senate last fall. Earl Ray Tomblin, President of the State Senate, became acting governor. The state Supreme Court ruled that Tomblin couldn't simply finish out Manchin's term (which was set to expire at the end of 2012) but rather that a special election had to be held this year. That means that whoever wins tonight will only serve for a year—the victor will, if he wants to remain in office, have to run again next fall for a full four-year term.
Tomblin handily won a contested Democratic primary for the special election earlier this year, a victory which came as little surprise. The Republican contest, however, yielded an upset when unknown businessman Bill Maloney defeated the establishment choice, former Secretary of State Betty Ireland. Until the final stretch of the campaign, polling consistently showed Tomblin ahead, though Maloney has been closing the gap for months. However, the final public poll of the race, released yesterday by PPP, showed this race as a dead heat.
Tomblin has outraised Maloney, but the gap has been made up due to Maloney partially self-funding the race, and even more so thanks to outside spending. Much of the state's establishment has lined up behind Tomblin, including the Chamber of Commerce and the coal industry, but Maloney (and more specifically, the RGA) has narrowed the race with a late barrage of negative ads tying Tomblin to President Obama, who is as unpopular as ever in the state.
In a way, West Virginia shares an odd resemblance with another jurisdiction which recently held a special election, New York's 9th Congressional District. Like NY-09, West Virginia is ancestrally Democratic and most local elected officials are Democrats, even though many voters are quite conservative. But on the presidential level, West Virginia has long been trending away from the Democratic Party, as has NY-09. In a decade or so, the state could very well resemble many others in the South, which once had similar pedigrees but are now heavily Republican.
The question tonight is whether Tomblin can delay the future. If there's one thing he has in his back pocket, it's the Democratic Party's ground game. The state GOP actually doesn't amount to much and doesn't have the institutional power the Democrats still retain. This advantage could be worth a point or two in a very tight race—and all signs point to exactly that taking place. As always, we'll be liveblogging tonight's results. Polls close at 7:30 PM ET.