WV-01 (the southern half of WV) might be the weirdest congressional race in the country.
The Republican incumbent, Carol Miller, is an election-denying maga nutcase. Her only redeeming quality is she is too lazy to rabble-rouse like MTG or Bobo. She doesn’t do anything for her district or campaign. She won 66% of the vote in 2022 as a first time candidate- this is not a swing district.
The Democratic challenger, Chris Reed, is a Green Party troll who spends his time bashing Harris and Biden as warmongering fascists. More on him below.
The voice of sanity in the race is Wes Holden, an independent who worked for Senator Jay Rockefeller for thirty years. Wes has been endorsed by his former boss, Senator Rockefeller; the AFL-CIO; the Steelworkers; the Mineworkers; West Virginia Working Families (I am the state chair); and We Can’t Wait, the left-wing populist group that supported Stephen Smith in his 2020 governor’s campaign. That is a broad swath of organizations from the conservative, moderate, and progressive parts of our Democratic coalition.
WFP’s decision
WV WFP has had an inviolate rule since we began in 2017: we will never endorse an alternate candidate if there is a Democrat in the race. We have passed on some great third party candidates. We tell them that if they run in the Democratic primary we will support them. Our goal is electing the best possible candidates, not playing purity games, and the Mountain (Green) Party in WV tops out at 5% of the vote.
Wes applied for our endorsement before the May primary and we summarily rejected him. There were two Democrats running and so we followed our rule. Then the batshit crazy candidate beat the establishment candidate and we had to reassess.
A Batshit Crazy Democrat
Chris Reed is the Democratic nominee. He has never filed a campaign finance report, presumably because he has not raised $5000. He doesn’t have a campaign website. On his Facebook page he doesn’t mention being the Democratic nominee. He doesn’t seem to be actively campaigning. His previous electoral experience was running for the state house as a Mountain Party (Green) candidate. He did go to Chicago to protest the Democratic Convention. Here are quotes from his recent FB posts:
It is shocking how many folks whom I considered to be open minded have decided to throw in their lot with a candidate like Harris. By ignoring the ongoing genocide in Gaza they are exhibiting an extreme form of First World privilege.
Harris is turning flip-flopping into an Olympic sport…
The Democrats are the number one war party in Washington. Bush era Republicans swoon over Harris’ militaristic speech.
I won’t post any of the memes and graphics he has shared. If you really want to dive into an alternate reality here is his account. From ten minutes of scrolling I learned he likes Cornel West, Muammar Gaddafi, Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and the Cuban government. None of these are major concerns for the voters in southern WV.
How did he manage to beat a sane Democrat in the primary? One possibility is ratfucking by Republicans registered as independents (WV has a semi-open primary). Don Blankenship, the convicted coal baron, ran for the Democratic nomination for US Senate. He did distressingly well in some of the southern coal counties. Reed’s vote totals were highly correlated with Blankenship’s. Reed and Blankenship only agree on one thing- the Democratic Party is evil.
Holden’s Positions
Wes could have easily won the Democratic nomination. He is well known and respected from his position with Rockefeller. His positions on issues are those of a mainstream Democrat (I reviewed these when we were deciding about the endorsement).
He is pro-choice.
He is pro-union.
He acknowledges the coal industry is dying and that WV needs to diversify its economy out of fossil fuels.
Why Run as an Independent?
Here is what Wes posted on his web site:
I believe that the people of West Virginia are more concerned with a candidate’s character and ability than with the party he or she belongs to.
As an independent candidate, my allegiance is to ordinary citizens; not PACs, special interests, or political machines. I believe that our politicians have failed in their most fundamental duties. My purpose in running for Congress is to improve our quality of life and ensure a better future for West Virginia.
In recent years, the Republican Party has had a stranglehold on this state, occupying all the major offices, except one Senate seat (Manchin’s). Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has become quite weak and has few resources. Registered Democratic voters have declined 38% in the last eight years. Independents, on the other hand, have increased 15% and currently constitute more than 25% of the electorate in the state.
In the course of campaigning around the first congressional district, from MacDowell to Pendleton to Mason Counties, I have had a very positive response to my candidacy as an independent. Voters who are registered independent are quite enthusiastic, and I am also getting a lot of support from Democrats and even many Republicans who are unhappy with the incumbent, who has been in office for going on 6 years.
Currently, there are two independents in the U. S. Senate, Bernie Sanders and Angus King. Just because West Virginia has never had an independent serve in Congress before this, doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
I am putting my shoulder against the wheel of history and pushing the skeptics out of the way, because I am the best candidate for the job. This election, I’m asking you to join me, and let’s make history together!
Wes says that he has been invited to Democratic Executive Committee meetings in several counties in his district and that they are supporting him. I don’t live in his district. If I did I would, as a member of our county DEC, make a motion to support him. I have asked my representatives on the state DEC to move that the state Democratic Party denounce Reed as a fake Democrat (as they did with Blankenship before the primary).
I agree with Wes that his approach is worth trying. I have knocked on thousands of doors over the last twenty years, most recently for our WFP-endorsed candidates (who are almost all Democrats). I can easily convince independents to vote for WFP’s choices. Trying to convince the same people to vote for the same candidates because the Democrats are great doesn’t work (“both parties are crooked”). It is unfortunate, but the Democratic Party brand in WV is unpopular.
I don’t expect Wes to win. However it will be an interesting experiment to see if the solution to the Republican deadlock on state government is to run independents. There are many similarities among WV, Vermont, and Maine. All three are rural and lily white. Bernie is incredibly popular in a purple state- I doubt he would have been nearly as successful as a Democrat.Since Wes is not a Democrat he can’t use ActBlue. Here is a donation link.