A political science professor at West Virginia Wesleyan says the 2014 U.S. Senate race could be very interesting.
U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat, is up for reelection in two years and Second District Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, has already announced her plans to run for the seat.
“If the Senator would decide to run again, we would have something very unusual and that is a very competitive Senate race,” Professor Robert Rupp said on Thursday’s MetroNews Talkline.
“West Virginia hasn’t had a hard fought Senate campaign in decades.”
On Monday, Congresswoman Capito announced her U.S. Senate plans at the State Capitol on her 59th birthday. She says she talked with Senator Rockefeller about it last week.
“These are two good people,” Rupp says of the potential Rockefeller vs. Capito matchup. “I’m worried they’ll get negative, but these are two good people.”
Congresswoman Capito’s U.S. Senate announcement came just three weeks after the 2012 General Election when she was reelected to, what will be, her seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“I have decided to make my intentions for 2014 known now so that I can get back to work in Washington and to avoid disruptive political speculation,” she said.
The filing period for the 2014 election cycle is more than year from now.