Mitch Carmichael
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — With control of the state Senate on the line, Republicans not only mostly rebuffed a nearly $3 million campaign by organized labor and trial lawyers but picked up four seats Tuesday to build a 22-12 majority.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, said Wednesday he believes the election results are a validation of the Republican agenda in the Senate for the past two years — particularly in light of the independent expenditure campaign targeting Republican senators.
“They validated this new direction in West Virginia,” he said of the election results. “We’re pleased by the changes we’ve made as it relates to labor law, civil justice reform and regulatory schemes.”
On Tuesday, Carmichael withstood weeks of blistering attacks from the pro-labor West Virginia Family Values PAC to eke out an 886-vote margin of victory over Democrat and Putnam County attorney Brian Prim.
Many of the ads focused on Carmichael’s testimony as a character witness in the sentencing of a convicted child molester in 2013 — ads Carmichael likened Wednesday to character assassination.
The nail-biter victory puts Carmichael — a Frontier Communications executive with 15 years in the Legislature, including one term in the Senate — in prime position to become Senate president with the departure of current President Bill Cole, R-Mercer, who left his Senate seat for his unsuccessful bid for governor.
“I’m certainly offering my name as a candidate for Senate president,” Carmichael said. “I’m interested in it, and I seem to have a nice group of supporters in the [Republican] caucus.”
Senate Republicans will caucus Dec. 3 to select a new president.
On Tuesday, that GOP caucus grew by four members, at the expense of Democratic candidates strongly backed by the labor-funded Family Values PAC:
In the 2nd District, Glen Dale radiologist Mike Maroney swept past Democrat Lisa Zukoff and Libertarian H. John Rogers to claim the seat vacated when Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, opted to run for governor.
In the 10th District, Monroe County funeral director Kenny Mann soundly defeated Delegate Dave Perry, D-Fayette, by a 55-45 percent margin, picking up the seat held by Sen. Bill Laird, D-Fayette, who did not seek re-election.
In the 14st District, Delegate Randy Smith, who moved from Preston to Tucker County to make the run, defeated incumbent Sen. Bob Williams, D-Taylor, by 4,877 votes.
In the 16th District, former teacher Patricia Rucker used a vigorous grassroots campaign to defeat Delegate Stephen Skinner, D-Jefferson, one of the House’s most unabashedly liberal members, in a re-match of their 2014 House race. The Senate seat had been held by Sen. Herb Snyder, D-Jefferson, who lost a race for Jefferson County clerk Tuesday.
Democrats picked up a single seat, when Putnam County lawyer Glenn Jeffries defeated first-term Sen. Chris Walters, R-Putnam, in what proved to be West Virginia Family Values’ lone victory — one that Walters said relied on slanderous ads that attempted to link him with Carmichael’s testimony.
In addition to Carmichael, Republican incumbents Sue Cline, R-Wyoming, and Greg Boso, R-Nicholas, survived fierce challenges.
Cline, appointed to replace former Sen. Daniel Hall, R-Wyoming, who changed his party affiliation to give Republicans a majority after the 2014 elections, edged out longtime Wyoming County clerk Mike Goode in the 9th District.
Boso, appointed to the Senate in 2015 and a target of labor for his outspoken support for right to work and repeal of prevailing wage laws, trailed Delegate Denise Campbell, D-Randolph, for much of election night, before returns from Nicholas County gave him a late surge to retain the 11th District seat.
Reach Phil Kabler at [email protected], 304 348-1220, or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.
