CHARLESTON, W.Va. — State Sen. President Bill Cole (R-Mercer) is running unopposed in Tuesday’s GOP gubernatorial primary but he was on Charleston’s West Side Monday night hoping to get voters charged up to head to the polls in the morning.
Holding a ‘get out the vote’ event at The Grill, Cole said he hadn’t spent too much time concerning himself with who his opponent would be in the fall.
“Any one of them will be a formidable candidate, and I haven’t lost one minute of sleep trying to decide who it’s going to be,” said the Sen. President. “The voters will decide that for me tomorrow night, and I’m anxious to see.”
Cole will run against one of three people vying for the Democratic nomination Tuesday: Sen. Minority Leader Jeff Kessler, Greenbrier owner and businessman Jim Justice and former U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin. He wanted to make sure voters understood the importance of primary day.
“It is about getting the vote out,” Cole said. “Primaries are easy to ignore sometimes, but this is the general election for our judges. It’s critical people understand that.”
Cole said he planned to spend his primary day “laying low” until about 7 p.m., and would arrive at GOP headquarters to watch the returns.
“I really haven’t,” he said when asked if he’d done much research on campaigning against his three possible opponents in November. “I’m hopeful that the campaigns stay about the issues and don’t get down in the gutter. Certainly, my intent is to run our campaign on what the issues are and what our plans are to fix them.”
Regardless of having no opponent to worry about Tuesday, Cole said he was out Monday night to send a message of teamwork.
“To me, these things are all about team and we have a great team assembled. I want to get everybody jacked up and ready to go for our big day tomorrow.”
Polls will be open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. in West Virginia on Tuesday.