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Mark's avatar

Agreed. Elliott was getting some buzz for running a good campaign. I thought he'd at least outrun Harris by 5 points or so.

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Zero Cool's avatar

Per the Guardian, a Democratic West Virginia Delegate mentioned that the WV-SEN race would have been much closer if the DNC was more closely involved. The delegate said that it was a big miscalculation that the DNC and DSCC didn’t invest in the race.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/18/election-west-virginia-senate

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Tigercourse's avatar

I highly doubt they could have improved more than a handful of points. Not everything's the fault of the DNC.

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Zero Cool's avatar

You could be right although the real issue Glenn Elliott faced in his Senate campaign was visibility and getting enough awareness about it to West Virginians across the state.

The issue isn't about whether Elliott would have won or not but rather the support he would need in order to make the Senate race more competitive. From what the West Virginia house delegate, Shawn Fluharty, had said it was that Jim Justice had high negatives coming in. I think he and WV Democrats wanted more involvement in Elliott's Senate campaign as it had very little outside support.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/18/election-west-virginia-senate

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Trump’s strength in West Virginia has political forecasters predicting no surprises in November. GOP candidates are expected to sweep the governor’s mansion and federal offices up for grabs, and party fundraisers and campaign organizations have sent little money to Elliott or any other candidate.

“I think it absolutely was an error,” said Shawn Fluharty, a West Virginia house delegate who has managed to hang on to his seat representing Wheeling for the past 10 years, even as the state has grown more Republican.

“I think that Jim Justice is not as well liked as he was probably two years ago when they started polling that race. And I believe there was an opportunity. If Glenn had the full backing of the DNC, this race would be a hell of a lot closer than what the polls currently show.”

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