CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The big gains Republicans made in the state Senate and state House of Delegates in the Nov. general election did not correlate to the amount of money raised and spent on legislative races, according to an analysis from the Charleston Daily Mail.
“This is an historic election and the results show for themselves what the race was like,” Joel Ebert, Charleston Daily Mail Capitol reporter, said on Tuesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
In all, Ebert said records from the Secretary of State’s Office show Democrats spent $4.2 million total on Senate and House races compared with the $2.3 million total spent by Republicans.
Despite being outspent almost two to one, Republicans claimed the majority in the state House of Delegates 64-36 and tied the Senate 17-17. Control went to Republicans, 18-16, when Sen. Daniel Hall (R-Wyoming, 09) changed his political affiliation from Democrat to Republican.
According to the Charleston Daily Mail, the most expensive legislative races were in Kanawha County’s 35th House District which has four seats and Monongalia County’s 51st House District which has five seats.
Records showed candidates in the 35th District received $500,000 contributions and spent $362,000 while candidates in the 51st District raised $440,000 and spent $356,000.
The full Charleston Daily Mail article is available here.
George Carenbauer, a former state Democratic Party chair, said Democrats in West Virginia and across the United States lost their way during the 2014 election cycle by, in his view, allowing Republicans to set the narrative.
“Instead of going against the narrative, we bought into it so you had Democrats saying, ‘Oh yeah, I’m going to tell Obama off too.’ You had that and you put them on the defensive,” Carenbauer said.
“The electorate was given a choice between people who were in a different party and said they were against these things and people who were in the same party.”