By LAWRENCE MESSINA
CHARLESTON (AP) — Political observers expect Massachusetts’s special U.S. Senate election to set the tone for this year’s midterm balloting, but whether West Virginia’s races become part of any national trend remains to be seen.
All 100 seats in the House of Delegate are up this year, as are 17 of the 34 in the state Senate. West Virginia’s three U.S. House members also face expiring terms, along with an array of county officeholders.
One week into their filing period, 153 candidates had registered with the secretary of state. More than four-fifths of them seek legislative office. Of those, more than two-thirds are incumbents.
The state’s congressional incumbents had yet to file, but each already faces one or more declared challengers.
In the sole statewide race, Supreme Court Justice Thomas McHugh has signed up to keep the spot on the bench that Gov. Joe Manchin appointed him to following the 2009 death of Justice Joseph Albright. What remains of Albright’s term expires in 2012.
The filing period ends midnight Jan. 30. Campaign finance reports from federal candidates are due the next day. Finance filings in state races debut in late March.
Analysts see signs of a major shake-up on the national scene, starting with Tuesday’s race in Massachusetts. But Robert Rupp, political science professor at West Virginia Wesleyan College, expects a ho-hum year for West Virginia politics.
“I haven’t found very many races for you to write about,” Rupp told reporters and editors at the Legislative Lookahead conference held recently by The Associated Press.
“2010 is not going to be an exciting political year,” Rupp said. “It may be exciting on the national level, but not very much is going to happen on the state level.”
Instead, this year’s races will be overshadowed by what Rupp calls “probably the most important election in the state in 30 years,” that of 2012. Besides Manchin leaving the governor’s mansion after two terms, Rupp sees a generational change among the state’s top offices.
That leaves 2010 “a year of incumbency, despite the fact that we have angry voters out there,” Rupp said. “You have a lame duck governor, and you have posturing legislators... It’s going to be a status quo election.”
The 2008 legislative races saw 10 delegates and seven senators retire or seek other offices. So far, Delegate Jeff Eldridge, D-Lincoln, has filed to challenge Sen. Ron Stollings, D-Boone, in their party’s primary.
The Inter-Mountain of Elkins reported last week that Delegate Mike Ross, D-Randolph, had announced plans to leave office this year. The Mineral Daily News-Tribune had earlier reported that Delegate Robert Schadler, R-Mineral, was planning to run instead for circuit clerk this year.
Of the 100 delegates, 71 are Democrats and that party also hold 26 of the Senate’s 34 seats, including 13 of the 17 up this year. The state GOP faces a daunting task in trying to whittle down or eclipse either margin.
The 2010 cycle had been a key target of the party-building strategy launched toward the start of the previous decade by West Virginia Republicans. This year’s Census will require the state to redraw its legislative districts to ensure each delegate and each senator represents an equal number of people.
The redistricting prompted by the 2000 Census was passed in September 2001, and became law the following month.
As for the 2010 congressional races, the challengers who have filed include former state GOP chairman and lawmaker David McKinley, and Republican Morgantown businessman Andrew “Mac” Warner. Each seeks a chance to take on U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan, a Democrat, in West Virginia’s 1st Congressional District.
While other Republicans are expected to file, the presence of McKinley and Warner should spur a high-profile primary contest. The National Republican Congressional Committee has already begun promoting McKinley’s candidacy. Warner hails from a political clan that includes 2004 GOP gubernatorial nominee Monty Warner and Kris Warner, like McKinley a former chief of the state Republican Party.
Both of these Warners, brothers to the current candidate, have been polarizing figures within the West Virginia GOP. The NRCC, meanwhile, did not fare well when it anointed a challenger to Mollohan in 2006.
“We already know it’s going to be low turnout in the general election,” Rupp said at AP’s pre-session conference. “If there’s a story there, it’s going to be the very, very low turnout in the primary, and that might be where we have surprises.”
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Lawrence Messina covers the statehouse for The Associated Press.
