# West Virginia: Dems Manchin and Ojeda both lead? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 22, 2018, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363 "2018-07-22T03:01:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2018, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/1 "2018-07-22T03:01:50Z")
[Monmouth](https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_wv_062018/). > [@](#): > > In the race for U.S. Senate, Manchin holds a 48% to 39% lead over Morrisey among all potential voters – that is voters who have participated in an election since 2010 or have newly registered to vote (a group that represents about 73% of all registered voters). Another 4% support Don Blankenship, who is seeking to run as the Constitution Party candidate after losing his bid for the GOP nomination. West Virginia has a “sore loser” law that may prevent him from appearing on the general election ballot. When Blankenship’s supporters are reallocated to their second choice, Manchin maintains a 49% to 42% lead. > > The race looks very similar using two different likely voter models. A historical midterm model gives Manchin a 49% to 40% lead over Morrisey with Blankenship in the race, and a 50% to 43% lead without. Using a model that includes a turnout surge in areas where Democrats tend to perform more strongly gives a Manchin a 50% to 39% lead when including Blankenship and 51% to 42% lead without the Constitution Party candidate. … > > … The contest for the open seat in West Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District is tight, with Democrat Ojeda at 43% and Republican Miller at 41%. Currently, likely voter models give the edge to Ojeda with a 47% to 41% lead in a historical midterm turnout scenario and a 48% to 39% lead using a Democratic surge model. … [About Richard Ojeda:](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/17/us/politics/richard-ojeda-west-virginia-congress.html) > [@](#): > > … An outspoken populist, Mr. Ojeda is running for Congress on a wave of labor activism thanks to voters like Ms. Renne, and he is doing surprisingly well as a Democrat in a district that President Trump won by nearly 50 points. Some Democrats see in him a model for how they can win in Middle American places where their party used to prevail, but has been decimated in the Trump era. … > > …Mr. Ojeda’s apparent surge has prompted comparisons to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the populist Democrat from the Bronx who knocked off a senior member of the House leadership in a primary. But Mr. Ojeda is not a leftist candidate: he does not want to abolish ICE or provide Medicare for all. He is pro-coal, while denouncing how coal companies stripped the state’s resources and left none of the wealth behind. He supports a public option to buy into Medicare and a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants, but he opposes universal background checks for gun buyers. > > And like 73 percent of voters in his district, he voted for Donald J. Trump in 2016. It is a choice he now regrets. … Despite the poll results many analyses still place Ojeda as the underdog. The Republican’s deeper pockets may prevail. But dayum! ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2018, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/2 "2018-10-11T16:10:29Z")
[Update](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-have-a-chance-to-win-one-of-the-reddest-districts-in-the-country/) on this race which would be an absurd result if Ojeda wins. > [@538](#): > > West Virginia’s 3rd District doesn’t seem like a district that should be competitive. It should be an easy Republican hold. After all, President Trump won the 3rd District, anchored by Huntington, by 49 percentage points, and the district’s FiveThirtyEight partisan lean1 is R+37, meaning it is 37 points more Republican than the country as a whole. In fact, the West Virginia 3rd is one of the 50 most GOP-leaning seats in the country, according to our calculations. Yet the election prognosticators have tagged the race as “Lean Republican” or even a “Toss-up,” and nonpartisan polls have found mixed results since the May primary. … Now duly note while 538’s “lite” gives him a 40% chance, their “classic” is not so much of a chance (90% probable he loses) … still they hedge heavily: > [@](#): > > For Democrats, the West Virginia 3rd may be a reach, but as we’ve seen in previous elections, it’s one Democrats could still grab on Election Night. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2018, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/3 "2018-10-11T23:26:47Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > [Update](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-have-a-chance-to-win-one-of-the-reddest-districts-in-the-country/) on this race which would be an absurd result if Ojeda wins. I’m more surprised 538 seems to unaware of how West Virginia is different than the national partisan dynamic would suggest. Democrats, [by voter registration](http://wvmetronews.com/2018/04/24/democrats-continue-to-lose-ground-in-wv-in-party-registration/), \*\*still outnumber Republicans by 11 points in WV \*\*even as they continue to lose ground among new registrations. The shift of rural white voters didn’t follow the GOP Southern strategy timeline. It didn’t really start to kick in around 2000. The rigidity of partisan affiliation dictating votes isn’t the same as we’ve come to expect in the rest of the country. Two years ago Ojeda’s politics made him a Trump voter. (I think we can safely say that his vote has swung to the Democrat in his race. 😉 ) I grew up in Ohio and WV shares many political similarities with Ohio’s Appalachian counties just across the border. They’ve started to shift affiliation on the same timeline as WV. It’s an electorate that is strongly pro-gun **and** pro-union. The pro-union piece in the midwest generally comes with support for trade protectionist measures like Trump campaigned on. We really need to not think of things in WV or Ohio’s Appalachian counties in terms of the national stereotypes about parties and partisanship. A pro-gun, pro-union, retired Army officer, who supports first responders (including police), and supports the counterterror campaign against IS is ahead in the polls in WV. I’d be more surprised if he was losing. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2018, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/4 "2018-10-12T03:04:04Z")
He is a good example of the kind of Democrat who can win back valuable ground from Republicans in key states. I was quite surprised when I saw his picture; I was expecting him to look very different based on his name, but of course a surname only tells 1/4 of someone’s ancestry, if that. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2018, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/5 "2018-10-14T21:20:04Z")
Yep. Looks like the voters switched from native populism to progressivism overnight. Almost like there are broad similarities between the statist sub genres. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2018, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/6 "2018-10-15T17:25:00Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Yep. Looks like the voters switched from native populism to progressivism overnight. Almost like there are broad similarities between the statist sub genres. Nah, I’m a West Virginian. We tend to be socially conservative and economically liberal. I think the best word for West Virginia politics is independent. I think that we feel like we’re the butt of everybody’s jokes and no one gives a rip about us. When that’s your mentality, you tend to distrust institutions and parties. We like bomb-throwers and people who blatantly favor us at everyone else’s expense. Sure, we love America, but we love West Virginia more. We like Trump mostly because he likes us and hates the people that we think hate us. He talks to WV like we’re awesome while national Dems tend to talk about WV patronizingly. It’s not some love of his ideology or policies. I think West Virginians assume that most policies don’t benefit us and when they do it’s accidental. Our over-reliance on coal and extraction mean that our economy is completely out of step with pretty much everywhere else. During the Recession, our economy was fine. Now that everywhere else is great, ours sucks. That makes us feel even more out of step since the focus seems to be on how people everywhere else are doing and not on us. What has really changed in WV politics that has made the shift redward is that the Blue Dogs died. West Virginians generally like God, Guns and Fetuses. We also like progressive taxation, unions and wealth redistribution. At one time, Blue Dogs let us have both. The national Dems have basically said though that Guns and Fetuses aren’t allowed anymore and God needs to stand in the back and that irks us. We naturally assume that neither party is going to really care about our economic interests, so we’ve become social voters. It could easily switch back if there was some give on the social side of things, but I don’t think that the political culture of the national Dems will allow it, so I would guess we’ll be red for awhile. It sucks for those of us that are blue here though. It really screwed with our politics at the state level. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2018, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/7 "2018-10-15T17:40:42Z")
“West Virginians generally like God, Guns and Fetuses. We also like progressive taxation, unions and wealth redistribution.” Sounds like an alt-right paradise. The similarities between Trump’s populism and this type of progressivism are their economics firstly and priority of economics over social considerations secondly. Labor protectionism aka anti-immigration is another key similarity. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2018, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/8 "2018-10-15T17:49:10Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > “West Virginians generally like God, Guns and Fetuses. We also like progressive taxation, unions and wealth redistribution.” > > Sounds like an alt-right paradise. > > The similarities between Trump’s populism and this type of progressivism are their economics firstly and priority of economics over social considerations secondly. Labor protectionism aka anti-immigration is another key similarity. I don’t think I would define the alt-right as having a coherent economic policy. Their goals are mostly white nationalism through whatever means possible. If they feel that political winds are blowing liberal economically, then they are happy to tag along. It’s also a mistake to think that their social policies are ‘conservative’ in nature. They typically don’t like God too much, but they do like the idea of cultural Christianity. They are pretty divided on abortion-some oppose it because it gives too much power to women; others like it because it disproportionately gets rid of minorities. They do like their guns though. If Ojeda wins, the fact that we would have the highest percentage of Hispanics in our congressional delegation (tied with New Mexico) would probably bother them. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2018, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/9 "2018-10-15T17:54:14Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > I don’t think I would define the alt-right as having a coherent economic policy. Their goals are mostly white nationalism through whatever means possible. If they feel that political winds are blowing liberal economically, then they are happy to tag along. It’s also a mistake to think that their social policies are ‘conservative’ in nature. They typically don’t like God too much, but they do like the idea of cultural Christianity. They are pretty divided on abortion-some oppose it because it gives too much power to women; others like it because it disproportionately gets rid of minorities. They do like their guns though. > > If Ojeda wins, the fact that we would have the highest percentage of Hispanics in our congressional delegation (tied with New Mexico) would probably bother them. The alt-right is not coherent if it even still exists, but broadly speaking from what I have seen, they are down with democratic socialism. Yes, though, they like the idea of Christianity more than God. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2018, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/10 "2018-10-15T20:13:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **senoy** : > > We like Trump mostly because he likes us… I hate to break it to you, but Trump doesn’t like anyone other than himself. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2018, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/11 "2018-10-15T21:31:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I hate to break it to you, but Trump doesn’t like anyone other than himself. That’s true, but he spends a lot of time here. Far, far more than any President I can ever recall and that speaks to people. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/12 "2018-10-16T00:03:04Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > What has really changed in WV politics that has made the shift redward is that the Blue Dogs died. West Virginians generally like God, Guns and Fetuses. We also like progressive taxation, unions and wealth redistribution. I disagree. The old yellow dogs died off and the younger voters more independent, while still social conservatives, realized that the progressive taxation, unions, and wealth redistribution still left us 49th or 50th in every category. They decided to give the GOP a chance. They will still vote for a “good” Democrat like Manchin or Ojeda. And that last part should be a note to anyone who might say that West Virginians are a bunch of backwoods, toothless racists. We might elect a guy named Ojeda. ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/13 "2018-10-16T01:34:17Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > That’s true, but he spends a lot of time here. Far, far more than any President I can ever recall and that speaks to people. In order to reassure himself that _someone_ out there still likes him. It’s not about you/us. At all. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/14 "2018-10-16T01:47:13Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > I don’t think I would define the alt-right as having a coherent economic policy. Their goals are mostly white nationalism through whatever means possible. If they feel that political winds are blowing liberal economically, then they are happy to tag along. It’s also a mistake to think that their social policies are ‘conservative’ in nature. They typically don’t like God too much, but they do like the idea of cultural Christianity. They are pretty divided on abortion-some oppose it because it gives too much power to women; others like it because it disproportionately gets rid of minorities. They do like their guns though. > > If Ojeda wins, the fact that we would have the highest percentage of Hispanics in our congressional delegation (tied with New Mexico) would probably bother them. My impression of the alt right is that they support white nationalism, patriarchy, nativism, etc. but they also support liberal economic policies. They just want them to only apply to whites. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/west-virginia-dems-manchin-and-ojeda-both-lead/818363/15 "2018-10-16T03:46:48Z")
If they only apply to whites, they’re not liberal policies.