HOPPY KERCHEVAL
Friday May 14, 2010
State Sen. Mike Oliverio's victory over 1st District Congressman Alan Mollohan in Tuesday's Democratic Primary Election is even more impressive when you take a closer look at the numbers.
Oliverio carried 14 of the 20 counties in the district, including Mollohan's home county of Marion. Unofficially, Oliverio won Marion by 704 votes.
Meanwhile, Oliverio won his home county - Monongalia - by nearly 1,900 votes.
* Oliverio now has a choice to make: Does he resign his state Senate seat and focus on his campaign or continue in the Senate?
I imagine national consultants will tell him to get out now so he doesn't have to make any controversial votes in the upcoming special session on education. But will it sound right for Oliverio to step aside before his term is over?
Oliverio and the Republican nominee, David McKinley, have to take advantage of the glow of victory and raise money immediately for their fall campaigns.
* The defeat of an incumbent congressman in West Virginia is extremely rare. The last time a sitting West Virginia congressman lost was 1992, and even that was under an unusual circumstance.
Redistricting following the 1990 census reduced the number of congressional districts from four to three. That put incumbent Harley Staggers Jr. up against Alan Mollohan in the 1st District primary and Staggers lost.
* Spike Maynard's victory in the Republican primary for the 3rd Congressional District was not particularly impressive. Maynard finished just 433 votes ahead of Marry Gearheart in a field of four candidates, despite the fact that Maynard was better financed and had more name recognition.
Maynard's campaign, however, likes to point to the fact that incumbent Rep. Nick Rahall's opponent, Bruce Barilla, got more than 21,000 votes on a shoestring campaign. That's the most votes a Rahall opponent has gotten in a primary since 1998, when James MacCallum got 15,438.
* Vienna Mayor David None tells me he really didn't think he was going to beat longtime 3rd District state Sen. Frank Deem in Tuesday's Republican Primary. Nohe surprised a lot of people, including himself, with his 4O9-vote victory over Deem.
Nohe said on Talkline Wednesday that he borrowed $20,000 against his car to finance his campaign, which he said didn't really kick in until 18 days before the election. Nohe says he held back because he knew Deem could easily outspend him.
* 8th District State Sen. Erik Wells said AFL-CIO President Kenny Perdue called to congratulate him on his hard-fought victory in Tuesday's Primary.
That's a classy move by Perdue, especially since labor invested so much time and money in trying to beat Wells.
Wells' victory is another indication that the teacher unions, which made beating Wells a priority, are not as politically powerful as they used to be.
* West Virginia's population is less than 4 percent black. That means the universe of black Republicans is a tiny fraction of the population.
Yet there will be two black Republicans on the state Senate ballot this November. John Barnes of Lewisburg won the GOP nomination in the loth Senatorial District over two other candidates. In the 17th, Charles Minimah was unopposed in the primary.
* Sen. Truman Chafin and Greg "Hootie" Smith have had a couple of epic battles in the race for the Democratic nomination in the state's 6th senatorial district.
Four years ago, Chafin beat Smith by 128 votes (out of more than 15,000 votes cast). The two spent over $350,000 on the campaign.
This year, total spending will be over $400,000. Chafin won Tuesday by 452 votes - again with over 15,000 votes cast.
* And finally, many candidates campaign hard and still lose, but not Ron Justice.
The former Morgantown mayor withdrew from the race for the Democratic nomination in the isth senatorial district, did not campaign, and still got 207 more votes than the other Democrat in the race, Delegate. Bob Beach.
Justice had officially withdrawn because of heart problems, but his name was still on the ballot.
Beach gets the nomination despite getting fewer votes, and will face Republican Cindy Frich in November.