In a 1940 election re-match, Robert Ramsay beat GOP incumbent A.C. Schiffer in the last of the 6 West Virginia congressional districts with a Republican. The state had a lot for clout in the House when they had 6 congressional seats. The state lost a seat after the 1960 census and another one after the 1970 census. After the 1990 census the first and the second districts were combined setting up a D vs D primary, in which incumbent Alan Mollohan defeated incumbent Harley Staggers. West Virginia has had 3 House seats since then-- until now.
This year sees West Virginia's third district eliminated and has set up a intra-party war between WV-01 incumbent David McKinley and WV-02 incumbent Alex Mooney in the new 2nd district, the northern half of the state (PVI- R+34). Carol Miller, who represented WV-03, is running in the new first district,the Southern half of the state (R+35)-- and she may get a Democratic challenge from former state Senator Richard Ojeda, a weird duck who supported both Bernie and Señor Trumpanzee.
Mooney is an all-in Trump-fanatic, as crazy as they come. Trump has already endorsed him. McKinley is more of a mainstream conservative, and he has sometimes drifted from Trumpist and fascist orthodoxy. McKinley's chances could be helped by the campaign being run by Michael Sisco, an outright Nazi, a monarchist and white supremacist, running in the primary and likely to draw some fringe votes aways from Mooney. Two-thirds of the district was part of McKinley's district so, at least on paper, he has an advantage. Mooney is trying to obliterate that advantage by redefining McKinely as a RINO. This vicious ad began running today:
McKinley is in his 6th term and Mooney is in his 4th. Mooney has $2.7 million in the bank and McKinley just $630,000. The vote on the infrastructure bill cuts both ways. McKinley voted for it and Mooney against it. It delivered BIG TIME for West Virginia, since it was to a great extent written by Manchin, who made sure it included plenty of cash for roads, bridges, broadband, drinking water, and to deal with abandoned mines and gas wells, all of which is expected to create plenty of much-needed jobs. But the ideologically "correct" vote was to not hurt Trump's feelings by giving Biden a success where Trump failed miserably for 4 years. It will be interesting to see how West Virginia voters break on this, especially in light of polling that consistently showed huge majorities in favor of the bill; even most Republicans favored it.
