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Post by stb12 on Sept 5, 2024 23:19:44 GMT
4 electoral college votes
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Post by timrollpickering on Sept 7, 2024 20:35:27 GMT
Hard to see this as anything other than a Republican win.
The state's had an interesting history in Presidential elections. It voted Republican for its first three elections (1864, 1868, 1872) then Democrat for the next 20 years then went Republican in 1896 and stayed that way almost consistently through the Fourth Party System of 1896-1932, only going Democrat in 1912 when the Republican vote was split with the Progressives and the Dems carried the state with just 42%. In 1932 the state started voting Democrat at almost every election until 2000, with the exceptions of 1956, 1972 and 1984 (all big sweeps for the Republicans). Notably it voted Democrat even in the bad years of 1952, 1980 and 1988. The big switch came in 2000 when it went Republican and their share of the vote has risen at all but one election since (a loss of 0.5% in 2008 being the exception).
The Class I Senate seat is up for election and is the most likely Republican pick-up in the country. Joe Manchin has managed to win despite the state getting ever redder but is standing down and has also switched his registration to Independent. He was the last Democrat to win a state wide election here. The new Democrat candidate is Glenn Elliott, Mayor of Wheeling, whilst the Republican candidate is Jim Justice, the current Governor who was first elected as a Democrat in 2016 but switched to Republican and was re-elected as such in 2020.
The Governor is also up for election this year. Jim Justice is term limited (and running for the Senate) and the election will see Patrick Morrisey, state Attorney General, up against Steve Williams, Mayor of Huntington.
West Virginia is not a state with big cities. Huntington is the second largest with a population of 47,000, just a couple of thousand behind the state capital Charleston. Wheeling is the fifth largest with 27,000.
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Post by sanders on Sept 7, 2024 21:06:11 GMT
I thought GOP hold West Virginia would be a meme at the presidential level, but here we are. Yes, the only question here is how big the Republican margin of victory in the Senate race is. Joe Manchin didn't really have any chance of holding this (he was already below 50% in 2018 with a fairly low-key challenger in Morrissey).
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