GOP increases supermajorities in West Virginia House, Senate

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Republicans tightened their grip on the West Virginia Senate and Home of Delegates, including historic good points to their supermajorities within the common election.

Eight years since taking management of each chambers for the primary time in eight many years, the GOP now has its most lopsided benefit within the Legislature in fashionable historical past.

“Essentially the most significance sentence in West Virginia politics is that West Virginia has all the time had a two-party system, however it’s not a aggressive two-party system,” Robert Rupp, a retired political historical past professor at West Virginia Wesleyan School, stated Wednesday. “It has gone from one excessive to the opposite one.

“If we return 50 years, we had the Democrats being simply as dominant because the Republicans at the moment are. At the start of the twenty first century, the Republicans bounded out of nowhere. And now they’re simply merely on a roll.”

Republicans swept 15 of the 16 Senate races that had been referred to as by The Related Press, flipping six seats from Democrats within the course of. The GOP elevated its rolls from 23 to 29 seats within the 34-seat Senate, with one race nonetheless too early to name. Half of the chamber was not up for reelection.

Republicans gained not less than seven Home seats and now maintain an 87-11 benefit with two races uncalled.

Whereas voters backed GOP lawmakers, they didn’t again their proposals, soundly defeating 4 poll measures that superior earlier this 12 months by the Republican-dominated Legislature.

“The tendency of victors is to overreach,” Rupp stated. “After they overreach, West Virginia voters slap it down. And the truth that it’s all the time simpler to say no than sure, — they usually actually stated no — it was a rebuke towards Republican management.”

One-fourth of the races on Tuesday’s poll had no Democratic candidates. Democrats’ possibilities of reducing into the GOP’s stronghold additionally have been minimized by being outnumbered by Republican voters in 35 of the state’s 55 counties.

Democrats had hoped to grab on the abortion subject to show issues round, urging voters to go to the polls after the Republican governor signed a sweeping abortion ban with few exceptions in September.

As an alternative, Democrats now have solely a sliver of seats in each chambers.

Senate Minority Chief Stephen Baldwin of Greenbrier County misplaced to GOP challenger Vince Deeds, a retired state trooper operating in his first race. Baldwin was elected to the Home in 2016, then appointed within the Senate a 12 months later.

Democrat Ron Stollings, a four-term senator from Boone County, misplaced to former U.S. Lawyer Mike Stuart, a Republican.

Democrat Richard Lindsey of Kanawha County misplaced to Republican Mark Hunt, a former Democrat who served 14 years within the Home of Delegates.

Republican Laura Wakim Chapman, an legal professional from Wheeling, received a Northern Panhandle seat over Democrat and former Delegate Randy Swartzmiller, who had defeated incumbent Democrat Owens Brown within the main.

GOP Delegates Ben Queen and Jason Barrett received Senate seats. Queen defeated Libertarian Austin Lynch to win a seat from north-central West Virginia vacated by Democrat Mike Romano. No Democrat was entered within the race. Barrett ousted incumbent Democrat Hannah Geffert of their Japanese Panhandle district.

The lone Democrat to win a Senate race was Mike Woelfel of Cabell County, defeating Republican Melissa Clark.

In a race that was too early to name, former Democratic Sen. Mike Oliverio of Monongalia County, now a Republican, led Democratic Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer. The seat was held by Democrat Bob Seaside, who selected to not search reelection.

Not less than 4 Home Democrats misplaced their reelection bids. Amongst these included Cody Thompson, an overtly homosexual man who fell to a neighbor’s son and political newcomer, Republican Elias Coop-Gonzalez.

Democrats lengthy dominated the state on the energy of their sturdy union presence and a transparent identification because the get together of working individuals, holding supermajorities in each chambers as not too long ago as 2008. However within the 2014 common election, voters within the coal-dependent state steered their disgust towards Democratic President Barack Obama’s efforts to chop carbon emissions from coal-fired energy vegetation. Obama was so unpopular in West Virginia {that a} federal inmate in Texas acquired 41% of the vote within the state’s 2012 Democratic presidential main.

Republicans took management of each legislative chambers after the 2014 election.