State-level Elections Continue to Trend Heavily Republican

November 16, 2022

Mountaineer News

West Virginia Legislature

CHARLESTON, WV - West Virginia state legislature elections have continued to trend heavily Republican in recent years and have begun to match the success of Republican candidates for federal office in 2022.

In November’s elections, more than two-thirds of West Virginia voters turned in their ballots for a Republican candidate in the state House of Delegates and the state Senate. The Republican support increased by nearly 6% in the Senate and by nearly 10% in the House since 2020. Since 2018, Republican support in state House races has increased by about 18% and in the state Senate by about 14%.

Although Democrats are finding it difficult to win races in West Virginia in recent years, Democrats had been major players in the state about a decade ago. However, Republicans have secured the state’s electoral college delegation for their presidential candidates since 2000, have controlled the congressional delegation since 2010 and now maintain strong supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature.

Much of these shifts can be attributed to national narratives defining local politics in recent years, according to Sam Workman, the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs at the John D. “Jay” Rockefeller School of Policy & Politics at West Virginia University.

“With changes in the structure of media organizations and media markets, the penetration of national narratives, frames, and priorities saturate local markets to a much greater degree,” Workman told The Center Square. “This eases party signaling on both sides about how issues align with a party’s goals and results in more partisan sorting and less wiggle room for folks who might split a ticket or vary their vote based on the issue.”

John Kilwein, a political science professor at WVU told The Center Square that Republicans benefited from a number of things in the 2022 elections in West Virginia. He said the electorate is becoming increasingly conservative and national Democrats are becoming increasingly unpopular. Additionally, he noted that the shift from multi-member districts to single-member districts and gerrymandering have also contributed to massive Republican gains.

Over the past two cycles, Republicans have flipped 10 state Senate seats and 27 state House seats. They secured a supermajority in 2020 and continued to heavily build on that supermajority in 2022. Prior to the 2020 elections, Republicans held a 20-14 majority in the Senate, but now hold a 30-4 majority. In the House, they held a 58-41 majority and now hold an 88-12 majority.

After Gov. Jim Justice switched his party registration from Democrat to Republican in 2017, the state continues to have only one outlier: Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. He has consistently been popular in West Virginia, but that popularity declined significantly after he was the deciding vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which critics warned would lead to higher taxes on the coal industry and could be used to justify further regulating the industry.

He faces reelection in 2024 after barely winning his 2018 bid by three percentage points.

“This is already baked into Manchin’s calculus – none of these trends are new to him,” Workman said. “It does put a premium on his ability to signal positions in much finer detail along the issues. He can’t simply say I am this or that party – that his opponents can do this is a luxury. So far, he is a master of fine detail communication along issue lines (see stances on coal versus healthcare).”

The only area in which Republicans faced defeat in West Virginia in 2022 was on ballot initiatives. There were four initiatives backed by the Republican leadership in the legislature, but all four of them failed to pass.

“Whether [Manchin] can continue to excel in that regard is anyone’s guess, though the results of the amendments may hint that he will be better at it than his opponents,” Workman said.