ELECTIONATE NOVEMBER 29, 2012
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After a brutal Election Day, Republicans led off the 2014 recruiting cycle with some good news: Popular West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito announced that she would challenge long-time Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller for his seat. Although Rockefeller has never won reelection by less than 27 percentage points and Democrats continue to dominate at the state-level in West Virginia, Republicans have plenty of cause to be optimistic about their chances in the Mountain State.
When Jay Rockefeller first won his Senate seat in 1984, West Virginia was one of the most Democratic states in the country. Democrats had performed better in West Virginia than the country as a whole in just about every election since 1932, when the New Deal and the United Mine Workers brought impoverished and heavily unionized West Virginia into the Democratic-fold. Democratic presidential candidates won West Virginia in four of the six presidential elections between 1968 and 1988, with Republicans only prevailing in Nixon and Reagan’s 49-state landslides.
The national Democratic Party’s embrace of gun control and environmental regulations brought an abrupt end to West Virginia’s Democratic-lean in presidential elections, but local and state Democrats distanced themselves from the national party on cultural and environmental issues and continued to succeed in statewide elections. Indeed, Rockefeller won reelection by 27 points in 2008, even though McCain won the state by 13 points—a 40-point gap. But after four years of the Obama administration, it is unclear whether Rockefeller can pull it off again. The fight over Cap and Trade and the so-called “War on Coal” were devastating blows to Obama’s standing in coal country, turning an area that was as blue as New York into one as crimson as Alabama. (For example, Romney gained a staggering 42 points over McCain’s performance in Boone County and won by 31 points, even though Boone had voted for Democrats in all but one presidential election since Coolidge.)
If Obama was the only Democratic candidate suffering in coal country, perhaps Rockefeller could comfortably win reelection. But the recent performances of Democratic Senate candidates in neighboring counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Virginia cast serious doubt on the extent that coal-country voters continue to distinguish between national and state Democratic candidates.
Buchanan County, Virginia borders West Virginia and has a similar political tradition. Before the Obama administration, Democrat Tim Kaine, then running for governor, won Buchanan County by 5 points and Republican George Allen, running for Senate, lost Buchanan County by 12 points. Earlier this month, those same candidates, facing off for Allen's old Senate seat, produced a dramatically different result. Kaine lost Buchanan County to Allen by 29 points—just 5 points better than Obama’s 34 point defeat.
In Pennsylvania, Senator Bob Casey, a pro-life, conservative Democrat, lost traditionally Democratic counties bordering West Virginia that John Kerry managed to win eight years ago. Casey lost Greene County by 3 points in 2012, even though he carried it by 27 points in 2006.
Across West Virginia’s northwestern border, Senator Sherrod Brown—an anti-Cap and Trade Democrat who won almost all of southeastern Ohio in 2006—performed worse than John Kerry across much of Ohio’s coal country. While Brown outperformed Kerry in 2006 by 25 points in Monroe County, a traditionally Democratic coal county bordering West Virginia, Brown actually finished 8 points worse in 2012 than Kerry did in 2004.
In fact, the only Democratic Senate candidate to outperform Kerry in coal country since 2008 is Joe Manchin, who managed to win West Virginia by 10 points in 2010 and 24 points in 2012. While Manchin’s recent victories indicate a path forward for Rockefeller, Manchin’s example isn’t exactly heartening to liberals. Before running for the Senate, Manchin was an overwhelmingly popular governor with approval ratings near 70 percent. Despite high approval ratings, Manchin found himself trailing by as much as five points by the early part of October as Republicans attempted to link him to the national Democratic Party. It took an advertisement in which he shot a copy of the Cap and Trade bill with a rifle for him to win just 53 percent of the vote, even though voters liked him personally and strongly approved of his performance as governor.
To win in West Virginia, Democrats need to be able to run such advertisements. Rockefeller can't, so he is in trouble. While Manchin could credibly run as a defender of West Virginia’s coal industry, Rockefeller voted for the McCain-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill in 2003; argued that coal supporters should stop “pretending climate change doesn’t exist”; didn't take a vigorous stance against the cap-and-trade push in 2009 and 2010; and was the only member of West Virginia's congressional delegation to oppose legislation blocking an Obama administration rule targeting mercury emissions from coal-fired plants. A November 2011 PPP poll found Rockefeller’s approval rating at just 47 percent, with Capito leading Rockefeller by 4 points in a hypothetical Senate contest—far beneath Manchin’s 61 percent approval rating and 11 point lead in the same poll.
Rockefeller's best shot might be a Tea Party-type conservative winning the Republican nomination, since Capito is pro-choice and quite vulnerable to a primary challenger. Certainly, the last few years suggest that it would be unwise to assume that the GOP can't find someone capable of costing them a winnable Senate seat. But even if a Tea Party-type conservative wins the Republican Party nomination, Rockefeller might still be an underdog. Conservative Republican candidates like Rand Paul have performed well since 2008 in neighboring areas of coal country, and Manchin's narrow victory despite high approval ratings, strong personal popularity, and far better positioning on coal makes it difficult to argue that any Democrat without irreproachable credentials on coal and cultural issues should be considered a favorite in West Virginia, even against a relatively weak challenger--let alone Capito.
10 comments
Good analysis. But, why do members of Congress keep running for re-election after the age of 75? Is the job that easy? I assume no one dare primary Jay Rockefeller from the center.
- K2K
November 29, 2012 at 1:02am
So, he is poorly positioned, but the proper implementation of the ACA within WV should be able to gain him back some lost white working class voters. He strongly supported the Pelosi agenda (I expect to see this message in Republican ads), but the state is one of the poorest in the nation and in desperate need of improvement to people who are lacking jobs and insurance. Hence, the fact that the Democrats are so well-organized in the state, that they have been able to hold on due to their economic message and in spite of their social message, and that Rockefeller is viewed within the state as an institution means that although he will have to campaign, he can pull it out in the end. Now, SMC? If she really does get Tea Partied out for being pro-choice, then this is more of a Leans Democrat scenario. Remember: the election is in fall 2014, AFTER hundreds of thousands of people who can't get health care in the state will be able to be seen by doctors. If that doesn't raise awareness and the fortunes of Rockefeller's campaign, I don't know what else will.
- chaitless
November 29, 2012 at 1:57am
Shelley Moore Capito is the daughter of Arch Moore, the Republican who won the WV governorship 2 or 3 times, once losing to Rockefeller. He went to jail for over 3 years in the Nineties for corruption and was disbarred. Moore was a whore for the coal industry, as is the Democratic Senator Manchin, who just got re-elected. In WV Democrats tend to be Republicans. Rockefeller is an exception. He's also an exception in his conservative family. WV has become reactionary recently, and I can't see Rockefeller hanging onto his Senate seat for very long. Maybe he doesn't want to. Robert Byrd hung on too long and became a bit of a joke. I saw a few of his one-minute speeches in the Senate on C-Span, and I thought he was going to fall over before the minute was up.
- magboy47.
November 29, 2012 at 2:48am
Becareful of what you wish - WV would go for a Tea Party anarchist in a mountain minute . . . Don Mc
- NR138704
November 29, 2012 at 10:03am
To be totally honest, who gives a rats ass about West Virginia? I sure as hell don't. If the average citizen wants to turn his state into a stripmined cell pool, what can I do about it?
- blackton
November 29, 2012 at 11:14am
Let's get some context here for a 2014 West Virginia Senate race, and compare that to Rand Paul's 2010 Senate victory in Kentucky as well as the differentials between 2006 and 2012 Senate races in the coal-country environs of Pennsyvlania, Virginia and Ohio. For starters, it should be blindingly obvious to all that President Obama is a major, major albatross for Democrats running in coal country, primarily because the largely white working-class voters in those areas associate him and the party he leads with positions that are antithetical to their economic well-being (i.e., coal) and their social values (i.e., guns, abortion and [for lack of a better phrase] white supremacy). When Obama's supposed anti-coal environmental policies (i.e., Cap & Trade) and his supposed anti-working class white policies (i.e., Obamacare, expanded welfare rolls, free contraception coverage, etc.) were at the forefront of the election, Democrats were bound to do poorly in those areas in contrast to prior performances. That explains just about everything in terms of the coal country votes in 2006, 2010 and 2012. Let's fast-forward to 2014 for a bit. Obama will still be President, so there is going to be an automatic strike against a Democratic Senator in West Virginia as a result of that. But what other strikes will there be? Cap & Trade is almost certainly dead for the foreseeable future, so while Rockefeller would continue to be vulnerable for his past support of that policy a non-incumbent Democrat (such as former Senator Carte Goodwin) would not. Unless a carbon tax or some other major environmental legislation somehow becomes part of the budget equation in the next two years, Democrats should be able to minimize the damage from environmental issues in 2014. In addition, assuming that natural gas exploration in the Marcellus and Utica shales continues apace between now and 2014, West Virginia stands to recoup a good chunk of its economic losses from a slowdown in coal production from a corresponding increase in gas production. As for social issues, Obama won't be on the ticket in 2014 and it's not likely that his Administration will push major new social issue initiatives now that the ACA and its abortion/contraception aspects are mostly a done deal. Yes, there is going to be the (bipartisan) DREAM Act and outreach to Latinos, but that is a non-issue in a West Virginia that has practically no Latino residents (particularly after Rich Rodgriguez left in 2007). So a lot of the hot buttons will have cooled off significantly in 2014, unless other, unanticipated buttons, heat up in the meantime. All that being said, Shelly Moore Capito is as good of a candidate as West Virginia Republicans could possibly field against Rockefeller and she would give him or a non-incumbent Democrat a very stiff challenge. However, if she is defeated by a Tea Party-type in a primary, the Democrat -- whether Rocky or someone else -- should be able to pull off a solid win unless there are some kind of new headwinds for Democrats in coal country that are not apparent today.
- wildboy
November 29, 2012 at 2:41pm
I agree with Blackton (without any ill-will toward the West Virginians). The partisan in me wants to keep as many Democratic Senators as possible, but that may not be in the cards...Anyway, it's an easier pill to swallow if we consider the recent trends in Virginia itself for the Democratic party.
- mcmahon.an
November 29, 2012 at 2:45pm
Well Blackton - Jay Rockefeller is a great Senator, a great man. He almost never showboats or even calls attention to himself, unless it's to stick up for working class people to the plutocrats or occasionally startle everyone in DC with some astringent, incredibly blunt comment out of nowhere that was sorely deserved (he's also the very first Dem big shot to endorse Obama over Hillary). His Senate office is also a great training ground for smart, wily legislatures, it was a big feeder for the Obama campaign in 2008. He's a good guy. When is the last time you could ever say any of those things about a modern Senator? Maybe WV will come around once a black guy isn't at the top of the ticket. Sorry, but they are unbearably racist down there. I hope he can hang in there.
- WandreyCer
November 30, 2012 at 9:55am
WandreyCer, having grew up in West Virginia I can vouch for the racism of (sadly) a majority of the states population. I left in the mid 70s to join the Army and lucky for me I grew up knowing and liking the one black family in our little town. I spent summers with their grandchildren in the late 50s and early 60s. However, though never openly racist, the majority of the 'white' folk always looked down on the family and they were just n***ers when out of earshot. I was lucky that I did not leave West Virginia with a preconceived notion that all blacks were n***ers, as so many of my peers did and still do. Even today, after 50 years, when I speak with some of my old classmates; I'm still astounded at their racist attitudes. 20 years in the Army taught me that if you use a persons skin color as a measure of their character, or lack of, then you will never change your way of thinking about anyone. When I go home now, politics are seldom if ever something I bring up, especially with that black guy in the White House. Yet so many of the people in West Virginia are just as dependent on the state and federal government for their existence, at or just above the poverty line, as any 'welfare queen' Reagan convinced them was stealing from them and their children. Yet, after all these years, they are convinced that no matter how sorry their plight may be, they are still better than the 'welfare queen' they detest. But I digress. I remember Jay Rockefeller from when he was in the State Legislature and then Governor. West Virginia politics are some of the dirtiest, no pun intended, anywhere. They don't say 'Coal is King' for nothing in those parts. I've always had great respect for Senator Rockefeller and it would be a real loss if he were not re-elected. Like you, I hope he remains for at least one more term or as long as his health permits. Although, I'd hate to see him become like Robert Byrd, who was really a shell of the man he once was those last few months before his death.
- jdkinpa
November 30, 2012 at 10:58pm
I lived in WVA when Jay was elected. Locals claimed he wouldn't steal as former governors did because he already had billions. What they did not realize was he was sent by the family and Chase Manhattan to mind the store. He's done a good job for the family.
- phyrro
December 1, 2012 at 8:39pm