Those with the National Republican Congressional Committee say they will be targeting Third District Congressman Nick Rahall in 2014.
NRCC Spokesperson Ian Prior says Congressman Rahall is one of the seven Democrat U.S. House members that Republicans think they can beat with the right candidates.
“We’ve categorized those top seven targets as districts where the Republican nominee for President has won each of the last Presidential elections,” Prior said on Tuesday’s MetroNews Talkline.
“So you’ve got Bush, McCain and Romney, all winning the Third Congressional District.”
As part of the effort to unseat him, Prior says the RNCC will be telling voters about a budget vote Congressman Rahall cast earlier this year.
He was one of 84 Democrats to vote for the so-called “progressive” budget which included a carbon tax and reductions to fossil fuel subsidies in favor of renewable energy. A total of 102 Democrats voted against it.
Congressman Rahall has said he supported that budget to counter Republican Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget proposal.
“There were other Democrat choices that he could have voted for that didn’t kill coal in the manner that this one does,” Prior says of that claim. “This is so far to the left, it’s unbelievable. Even Nancy Pelosi didn’t vote for this budget.”
Congressman Rahall was first sworn in as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1977. He has been reelected every two years since then.
Mercer County Senator Bill Cole, a Bluefield car dealer, is reportedly considering a run for the U.S. House along with Republican Rick Snuffer who challenged Congressman Rahall last year.