This is a diary series I’ve begun where every day (more or less) until the election, I’ll be highlighting one competitive race, giving some background, and information about how to help out. The goal is to go senate, governors, then house, focusing on competitive races.
The Democrat
Joe Manchin is the last of his kind. A few decades ago, parties were more divided by location, class, geography, and profession than ideology. Manchin is born of, and has acted as a part of, the sometimes conservative, sometimes progressive, and always parochial West Virginia Democratic tradition.
Manchin came from a political family. His uncle was elected to multiple statewide offices, and his father was the mayor of the small town in West Virginia that he grew up in. Manchin spent a little over a decade working in the family business, and then ran for the state house and then senate. After 14 in the legislature, he ran for governor in 1996. And he lost.
Specifically, he lost the primary to Charlotte Pritt, another state senator who was the cause celebre of the state party’s progressive wing. Manchin was part of the 3/4 of the Democratic state legislature that refused to back her. She lost, even in the Democratic year of 1996. They would face off again in the 2000 Secretary of State primary. It was a grudge match, and Machin won convincingly. Once the governor’s office was open in 2004, he ran again, and won this time, facing limited opposition in both the primary and general.
His tenure as governor probably would have been seen as successful if uneventful, if it hadn’t been for the 2006 Sago Mine disaster. Lax safety conditions led a mine collapse that killed 13 miners and left another with permanent organ and brain damage. Machin’s handling of the crisis and the mine safety bill he helped pass made him very popular. In 2010, following the death of Sen. Robert Byrd, he ran for senate, and despite the crushing national environment for Democrats, won fairly easily. His tenure in the senate has been a frustration for some progressives, with him being the most moderate member of the caucus, bucking the party on many key issues.
The Republican
Patrick Morrisey is a lawyer from North Jersey. He even ran for Congress in Jersey. And he's a lawyer from Jersey who moved to the DC area to work as a lobbyist. And then in 2012 he ran for Attorney General. It's kind of astounding that he was simply gifted the nomination, since incumbent Darrell McGraw had won by .8% in 2004 and 2008. But he was, and 2012 was the kind of year in West Virginia that took down many longtime incumbents because their opponents kept saying "Obamacare and coal", as Morrisey did, en route to a victory. As attorney general, he's been aggressive, suing the EPA for anything he can think of, and wearing the number of lawsuits he has against the Obama administration as a badge of honor.
The State
West Virginia's a unique state politically. As one of the poorest and most unionized states in the country, it used to be a Democratic stronghold, and between the years of 1976 and 1996 it only went Republican once, during Reagan's landslide, a level of Democratic consistency only Minnesota and Rhode Island can rival. But West Virginia has actually been trending away from Democrats, as since post-Watergate era the national party began to be percieved as more and more liberal. By 2000 it was a right-leaning state, and Democrats at the state level began to worry. But even as the state grew more resentful of the national party, incumbency and inertia held Democrats in power. The real decline began in 2010. As of 8 years ago, Democrats held more than 2/3 of both chambers of the legislature and US house seats, as well as every statewide office. Today, Republicans hold every house seat, nearly 2/3 in both chambers, and all but two statewide offices.
While this decline is largely attributed to coal, it runs deeper than that: a conservative state lost its faith in its conservative state Democratic Party in an era of partisan feuding. West Virginia is one of the most homogeneous states in the country. It is, or is close to, the oldest, whitest, least educated, poorest, and unhealthiest states in the country. It's also very rural. And that's a kind of voter the party has simply lost recently.
The History
2010 West Virginia Senate by county.
In 2012 Manchin wound up without a real opponent, so let's talk about 2010. Robert Byrd, the state's folk hero, died. Manchin, governor at the time, appointed a placeholder and ran in the 2010 special election. Manchin ran on his personal popularity, but also on a platform of explicitly not going Washington and not bowing to Obama. His most famous ad of the cycle was him shooting the cap and trade bill with a gun. His opponent, a rich guy perennial candidate ran by saying "Obama" a bunch. It shouldn't have worked. But in the environment of 2010, it got uncomfortably close, with Manchin eventually taking a 10% victory.
The 2018 Race
42%. That's how much West Virginia went for Donald Trump by. 68-26. That practically guaranteed the Republicans would focus their fire on the state. For a period of time, there was great worry that Manchin wound retire. He wasn't raising much money, and he openly spoke of how awful it could be in the Senate. But he eventually announced his re-election, and the focus turned to the Republican side.
For a time the primary looked like it was between Patrick Morrisey, described above, and congressmember from WV-03 Evan Jenkins. Jenkins was a longtime Democratic state senator in the conservative wing of the caucus who switched parties to run against incumbent Democratic congressmember Nick Rahall. He won that race by 11%, the largest defeat for any incumbent who’d survived 2010. Jenkins earned a fairly moderate reputation in his time at the house and became pretty popular in the district. And that’s a profile that can sell pretty well in West Virginia. Shelley Moore-Capito has been pulling it off for years. Behind the scenes, Democrats were hoping that Jenkins wouldn’t get nominated.
But Jenkins had two main weaknesses in the primaries. First is his recent party switch, which made many Republicans skeptical of him, which his moderation didn’t help with. And the second was party registration. Jenkins’s base was in the southern coalfields in particular and more moderate ex-Democrats in general. In West Virginia, those voters are mostly registerd as Democrats, so they couldn’t vote for him. Nutso, bonkers, racist, felon, coal baron, Don Blankenship was also in the primary, but for all the attention he got, he found up not mattering in the primary all that much. Morrisey ended up winning, somewhat by default.
Manchin also wound up with a primary. Paula Jean Swearengin, a progressive activist challenged him over the fact that he, well, wasn’t. She mostly earned votes in liberal urban areas, and paradoxically, the most conservative parts of the rural coalfields. That second group of voters are most likely conservative registered Dems who have soured on Manchin as a national Democrat. Still, finishing 70-30 in a primary is not great for an incumbent.
Since the primary, the race has gone quiet to the outside world, as many races in West Virginia do. There have been a lot of Veterans Hall meet and greets and Independence Day parades, but no big moves by either campaigns. Patrick Morissey hasn’t even aired a general election ad yet. The one wrinkle is the possible Constitution Party candidacy of Don Blankenship, but polling has put him with low support, and drawing from both candidates.
Big issues:
- Coal: It’s West Virginia, where coal will always be king. Obama and Trump’s approach to it, Manchin and Morrisey’s dealing with the EPA: it’ll all be litigated.
- Opioids: West Virginia has been hit hard by the opioid epidemic. Morrisey has made splashy attempts a fighting it, but also has a record of lobbying for the same companies who’d helped create it.
- Partisanship: Manchin has a personal brand, but can it stand up the fact that West Virginia fundamentally identifies with the Republican Party on a national level.
Fundraising:
- As of June 30, Manchin had $6.2M, and was raising roughly $500K per month
- As of June 30, Morrissey had $895K and was raised roughly $425K per month.
Polling:
Besides one Republican internal, every poll has showed Manchin up, and with a solid margin, 7-13%. Right now he’s in good position. But it should be noted that West Virginia is a state where an early polling lead should be less encouraging for a Democrat than elsewhere. Natalie Tennent was only down by about 10% at this time in 2014. She would go on to lose by 28. Manchin was up by about 20% this time in 2010,and he would win by 10%. Summer polling also overestimated Democrats in the gubernatorial elections of 2011, 2012, and 2016. The dynamics may very well be different this year, but they may very well not be.
Getting Involved:
The once invincible Democratic Party of West Virginia is collapsing, and we can’t rely on them to do on the ground activities in the state like they used to. So if you’re in West Virginia, please help out all you can. I don’t want to actively advocate against donating to Democrats, but senate races are very expensive, and you get some of the worst return on donating to them. But if the senate’s very important to you, and you want to give financially to the competitive races, here’s Manchin’s ActBlue.