6:00: Morning News

End of the week thoughts

–The competitive races for the Democratic and Republican nominations for President elevated West Virginia’s status from the usual fly-over country.  Bill and Hillary Clinton spent a total of three days here between them.  Donald Trump had a huge rally last night that packed the Charleston Civic Center and Bernie Sanders has made four stops in the Mountain State, including yesterday’s day-long swing from McDowell County to South Charleston and on to Morgantown.

–The Booth Goodwin and Jeff Kessler campaigns are buoyed by the new numbers from Rex Repass and the MetroNews West Virginia Poll.  It shows Goodwin trailing Jim Justice by just five points (32%-27%) and Kessler just nine points back (32%-23%), with 18 percent undecided.  The Justice campaign, however, is more confident in their poll which shows the Greenbrier owner up by 13 points. We will release the MetroNews West Virginia Poll for the presidential race this morning at 10:06 on Talkline.

–Secretary of State Natalie Tennant’s office reports a surge in early voting.  63,205 West Virginians had voted through the first seven days of early voting, marking a substantial increase in early voting during the same period in the previous four Primary Elections.  The next highest for the first week was 36,303 in 2012.   Either more people are taking advantage of the convenience of early voting or turnout will be higher than usual.

–West Virginia Senate Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael (R-Jackson) finds himself in a more difficult fight for re-nomination than expected because of positions he took during the last legislative session. Religious conservatives are after him because of his opposition to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and labor unions have targeted him because of his support for a right-to-work law and opposition to prevailing wage

–I know of no reliable polling in the much-talked-about race for a seat on the five-member West Virginia Supreme Court.  One theory is that Darrell McGraw has a slight edge because of name recognition and support from labor and liberal Democrats, with incumbent Justice Brent Benjamin, Beth Walker, Bill Wooten and Wayne King dividing up the anti-McGraw vote.   It’s highly likely that whoever wins will end up with less than 50 percent of the vote.

–Seventy years ago this election year, Robert Byrd undertook his first campaign as a candidate for the state House of Delegates.  The then little-known employee of the Carolina Supermarket in Raleigh County had an advantage—his fiddle.  Byrd wrote in his biography that, “I worked hard, and took my violin (fiddle) everywhere I went as I campaigned.”  He received the most votes of any of the 13 candidates and went on to win the General Election, kicking off the most successful political career of any West Virginian.

–A reminder that MetroNews will provide live continuous coverage of the Primary Election starting at 7 p.m. May 10th.  We will also post our results in real time at wvmetronews.com.

 





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