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GOP to regroup after another tough election
CHARLESTON -- Republican John McCain may have carried West Virginia decisively, but his party's fortunes on much of the rest of the ballot has top state leaders searching for a new game plan.
The Democrats kept their four-seat majority on the five-member Supreme Court and shut the GOP out of the Board of Public Works, the six statewide executive branch offices.
The GOP also failed to keep three state Senate seats held by departing Republicans, allowing the Democrats to increase their majority there to 26 out of 34 seats. Tuesday's results remain unofficial, and include former state Sen. Herb Snyder, D-Jefferson, defeating Republican Bob Adams by just 200 votes in the 16th District.
"A lot of people who voted for McCain, for whatever reason, could not pull the lever for the other Republicans," said state GOP Chairman Doug McKinney.
The silver lining: U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito survived a Democratic avalanche that swept away at least 20 fellow House Republicans, and the party picked up an open seat in the state House of Delegates.
But the Senate losses follow a 2006 election that saw the GOP lose ground in both that chamber and the House, where Democrats stand to hold 71 of 100 seats.
McKinney cited how all his legislative incumbents survived Tuesday. He also blamed the loss of the sole open GOP House seat on the last-minute decision by its occupant, Delegate Jeff Tansill, to run for county commission instead of re-election. Tansill, R-Taylor, won that new office, but McKinney said the party had no time to recruit a potential successor.
Senate Finance Chairman Walk Helmick, D-Pocahontas, noted that the GOP lost several races by narrow margins. Besides the Snyder-Adams Senate race, Republican Dan Greear missed unseating Attorney General Darrell McGraw by about 4,600 votes. Beth Walker, the GOP's sole Supreme Court candidate, fell 6,170 votes short of capturing one of the two seats on the ballot.
"They did pretty good, for a party with no money," Helmick said.
That remains a sore point for the state GOP. Nearly $200,000 in debt just three years ago, the party's main account had $12,345 as of Oct. 19. Fueled by the Democratic National Committee, the Obama campaign and Democrats in the state's congressional delegation, its counterpart's balance exceeded $279,000.
McKinney had warned the committee in an April letter that he would sooner dissolve the party than fall back into the red.
But McKinney also questioned whether money could have altered Tuesday's close defeats. He cited the ad campaign bankrolled by the state and U.S. chambers of commerce, along with allied groups, to help Greear and Walker. The TV ads alone cost at least $1.1 million, and the effort also included several glossy direct mailings, McKinney said.
"They spent an awful lot of money," McKinney said. "I'm not sure that any mailings from the state party itself would have done anything."
At the same time, McKinney said the party was powerless to help nine of its legislative candidates targeted by a last-minute batch of Democratic attack ads. While the eight incumbents on the hit list won their races, its GOP challenger lost her House bid.
"The only way we could counter those would be to go into debt," McKinney said. "I've vowed that we will not go into debt."
A bigger problem for McKinney's party may be its size. West Virginia has nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans, while the ranks of unaffiliated voted have grown more rapidly than either major party and now account for nearly 14 percent of the registration rolls.
"We're outnumbered, is the problem," McKinney said. "We know that we have to get the independent vote and a lot of the Democratic vote here to win."
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Lawrence Messina covers the statehouse for The Associated Press.
