The Republican surge that transformed West Virginia’s congressional delegation and statehouse also trickled down to the local level, with the GOP seizing control of five county commissions and increasing its representation on several others.
Both the Republicans who won county contests and the Democrats who lost them Nov. 4 attributed their fortunes at least partly to voters’ disaffection with the national Democratic Party and its standard-bearer, President Barack Obama.
“I really feel Scooby-Doo would have won the race if he’d had an ’R’ beside his name,” said Ronda Lehman, a Democrat who lost her bid for an open seat on the Jefferson County Commission in the state’s eastern panhandle.
Ms. Lehman was defeated by Republican Eric Bell, a distillery worker and Navy veteran, who will fill the seat of a Democrat who decided not to seek another term. With Mr. Bell’s election, the GOP gains a majority — three of five members — on the commission.
Before Nov. 4, the Democrats had majorities on 35 county commissions or councils, the GOP had the edge in 19, and one three-member commission was divided among a Democrat, a Republican and an independent, said Vivian Parsons, executive director of the County Commissioners’ Association of West Virginia.
When the boards are reconstituted next year, the association said, Democrats will have majorities on 30, the GOP will control 24, and one still will be split three ways.
But Republicans also making inroads on boards Democrats still control.
In Monongalia County, which includes Morgantown, Republican Ed Hawkins defeated incumbent Democratic Commissioner Bill Bartolo. Mr. Bartolo said Mr. Hawkins, who will serve with two Democrats, is of one only a few Republicans to have been a county commissioner over the past 50 years.
Mr. Bartolo said Mr. Obama did Democratic candidates no favors when he described the midterm elections as a referendum on his policies. He said West Virginia voters angry about the president’s so-called “war on coal” went to the polls thinking, “Well, we’ll just show him.”
In West Virginia’s marquee races, voters elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate for the first time since the 1950s and unseated the state’s last Democratic congressman. They also sent enough Republicans to Charlestown, the state capital, to give the GOP control of the legislature for the first time in about 80 years.
The GOP captured the state House of Delegates outright Nov. 4, then swung the state Senate a day later when a Democratic member from Wyoming County, Dan Hall, switched parties, giving the Republicans a one-vote majority.
Gregory Noone, associate professor of political science and law at Fairmont State University, said Mr. Hall’s change is an example of officeholders “reading the political tea leaves and trying to figure out where they need to be.”
Wyoming County is in southern West Virginia coal country, where residents are up in arms about Democratic clean-air policies viewed as a threat to their livelihood. It’s part of the district that turned against 19-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, the state’s last Democratic congressman, who lost his re-election bid to Democrat-turned-Republican Evan Jenkins.
The shift is remarkable party because of West Virginia’s longtime status as a blue state linked to the Democratic Party via coal, labor and social welfare programs.
Today, Democrats can’t bank on support from “the guy who has to take a shower after a day of work,” said Craig Jennings, Republican president of the Preston County Commission. In that northern county, Republican Don Smith defeated Democratic incumbent Vicki Cole, giving the GOP all three commission seats.
It only makes sense for West Virginians to something new, Mr. Jennings said, when their state is “ranked 49th or 50th in everything that’s good and first or second in everything that’s bad.”
Ms. Lehman said the change in political sentiment has transformed onetime Democratic strongholds in five years.
“We’ve seen a huge shift here,” she said of Jefferson County. “But we have a huge Tea Party presence here. They’re very organized.”
Mr. Bartolo said he was caught in the Republican wave even though he’s a fiscal conservative who has had held the line on taxes while investing in various capital projects.
It remains to be seen how far the Republican wave will spread. On Nov. 4, Democrats in some counties ran unopposed for their seats, and some Democrats defeated Republican opponents.In Jefferson County, for example, Democratic Sheriff Peter Dougherty defeated Republican challenger Steven Sowers Sr. Many local races are non-partisan.
Some county officials said the practical nature of the work that they do — and the personal nature of local politics — should mitigate the GOP surge. Ohio County Commissioner Tim McCormick, for one, said party ideology means little at the county level, “where the rubber meets the road.”
Residents don’t care whether local officials “are Democrat or Republican. They just want assistance when they need it,” said Mr. McCormick, a Democrat who won re-election Nov. 4 without opposition. In Ohio County, which includes Wheeling, Democrats occupy all three commission seats.
Democrats still have a significant statewide edge in voter registration, which tells Robert Rupp, professor of history and political science at West Virginia Wesleyan College, that “conversion is very difficult” for voters.
“Old habits not only die hard but are handed down,” he said.
The Republican surge has been occurring across Appalachia among voters disenchanted with Democratic social and environmental policies. Also in the mix, some believe, is racist sentiment against Mr. Obama.
The shift is similar in some respects to the political transformation that began sweeping the Deep South in the 1960s and other southern states earlier than that.
That change occurred as the region’s conservatism meshed with the GOP agenda, and the southern credo of “you vote as you fought” became passe, said Charles S. Bullock III, professor of political science at the University of Georgia.
He said Nov. 4 exit polls indicated that Democratic candidates in some southern races garnered less than 30 percent of the white vote, while about 80 percent of white evangelical Christians in some southern contests voted Republican.
“The GOP wave has reached many but not all county governments,” he said in an email.
Mr. Bartolo said friends have tried to console him by saying, “Don’t take this personally, Bill, because it’s not you.”
Joe Smydo: jsmydo@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1548.
First Published: November 16, 2014, 5:07 a.m.
