Candidates are starting to pile up in West Virginia’s special Senate election. Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin remains the frontrunner to succeed the late Dem Sen. Robert Byrd, but some other old names have been popping up — some very old names.
Yesterday, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito announced that she would not run, depriving the GOP of its seemingly strongest potential candidate. Had she run, Capito would have started out as an underdog — a Rasmussen poll from two weeks ago had Manchin leading her by 53%-39%. Nevertheless, she did seem like the best possible GOP candidate in a state that has been trending to the GOP, but where the party’s bench is very thin.
Thus far, five candidates have now filed for the Republican nomination. The most notable name is businessman John Raese, who owns important media and industrial concerns throughout the state. Raese first ran for the Senate way back in 1984, losing by a narrow 52%-48% against Democrat Jay Rockefeller in an open-seat race. He ran again in 2006 as Byrd’s Republican opponent, spending $2.2 million of his own money on that race, and ultimately losing by a much heftier 64%-36% against the long-entrenched incumbent.
Raese is coming out swinging against Manchin, comparing the governor to Tony Soprano, and dubbing appointed Democratic Sen. Carte Goodwin “Carte Blanche.”
Meanwhile, Manchin will not be running for the Democratic nomination unopposed. Also facing him in the August primary is former Congressman Ken Hechler. Hechler, age 95, is actually older than the late Sen. Robert Byrd, who died at age 92. Hechler told the Charleston Daily Mail that he does not expect to win, but is waging an issue-based campaign: “I want to make it about mountaintop removal. A vote for me is not a vote for Ken Hechler — it’s tantamount to a vote against mountaintop removal.”
Hechler was first elected to the House in 1958, left office in 1977, and in 2004 he ran unsuccessfully for West Virginia Secretary of State. And before his time in Congress, Hechler had previously worked as an aide to President Harry Truman.
The Democratic and Republican primaries will be held on August 28, with the general election held at the regular time on November 2.
