West Virginia

Shelley Moore Capito won a third term in the Senate for the Republicans, 58.3% to 37.9% over Democrat Rachel Fetty Anderson.¹ Republicans also kept both U.S. House seats: Carol Miller won the First District by 17.4 points and Riley Moore the Second by 18.7. Donald Trump carried the state by 41.9 points in 2024. Capito’s margin was 20.3. The governor’s office was not on the ballot, and the one statewide question, a constitutional amendment on citizenship and voting, had 79.5% in favor.

Set against the 2024 presidential vote, the Senate race moved 21.5 points toward the Democrats, and the two parties did not shrink alike. The race drew 60% as many votes as the 2024 presidential race and 97% of the 2022 total. Anderson drew 81 votes for every 100 Kamala Harris won here, and Capito drew 50 for every 100 of Trump’s. The U.S. House vote went from R+40.9 to R+18.1.

The shift was widest in West Virginia’s part of the Hagerstown area, which casts 9% of the vote and went from R+38.6 to R+12.0, a move of 26.5 points. It was narrowest in the Parkersburg metro area, at 17.8 points, from R+44.6 to R+26.7. The Morgantown metro area changed sides, going from R+18.0 to D+5.7, and the Charleston metro area came close, from R+22.9 to R+3.8. The small towns and rural counties, which cast 39% of the vote, moved 20.6 points and still voted Republican by 34.0.

The largest of the three counties that voted for Trump in 2024 and for Anderson this year is Kanawha County, in the Charleston area. It went from R+17.4 to D+0.7 on 47,941 votes. Monongalia County, in the Morgantown area, went from R+4.4 to D+17.6. Berkeley County, in the Hagerstown area, moved farther than either, 27.7 points, and stayed Republican by 8.1. No county moved toward the Republicans, and Capito carried 52 of the state’s 55.

Control stayed with Republicans, who keep the governor’s office and supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature.² Our count has the Senate at 30 Republicans to four Democrats, where it had been 32 to two, and the House of Delegates at 79 to 21. A veto of an ordinary bill is overridden by a majority of the members elected to each house, and budget and appropriation bills take two-thirds. Republicans remain above both thresholds.³

What the Democrats gained is procedure. With 10% of the members present they can demand roll-call votes, and because suspending the rule that bills be read on three days takes four-fifths of lawmakers, they can potentially prevent bills from being fast-tracked, Mountain State Spotlight reported. “We’re coming back, and we’re going to pick up more seats next time,” said Del. Mike Pushkin, the state Democratic Party chair.¹

Republican incumbents lost seats in both chambers. In the Senate, Democrat John Williams, a member of the House of Delegates, beat Sen. Mike Oliverio, and Democrat Richie Robb beat Sen. Anne Charnock. In the House, Democrat Dennis Rempel took the seat of the Finance chair, Vernon Criss, whom Gov. Patrick Morrisey had targeted in the May primary and who then mounted a write-in campaign. Steve Williams, a former mayor of Huntington and the Democratic candidate for governor in 2024, defeated two-term Republican Patrick Lucas. Many Republicans faced fallout for supporting HB 2014, a 2025 law that took away local control of data center development, according to Mountain State Spotlight.¹

Neither the drawing of maps nor the running of elections changed hands. The constitution assigns senatorial districts to the Legislature and says the arrangement of delegate districts is declared by law. The secretary of state, one of six executive officers with four-year terms, is Kris Warner.^{3, 4} Morrisey said the day after the election that voters want legislators to “stop all the nonsense and the politics and focus on better roads, clean water” and affordability.⁵ House Speaker Roger Hanshaw said on November 12 that he anticipates work on revising the public school funding formula once the regular session begins in January, MetroNews reported.⁶

A constitutional amendment proposed by the Legislature is ratified if a majority of the qualified voters voting on the question approve it.³ Amendment 1 provides that in all West Virginia elections only citizens of the United States who are citizens of the state are qualified to vote. A MetroNews commentary before the election noted that state law already prevents noncitizens from voting.⁷ The amendment had 79.5% in favor in our count, well past the majority it needed.

Republicans won again in all three of the federal seats they held, and none was close: the narrowest was the First District, which Trump carried by 44.0 points and Carol Miller won by 17.4. Republican incumbents prevailed in the Senate race and both congressional contests, as MetroNews’s Hoppy Kercheval put it, while Democrats’ gains left them with four of 34 state Senate seats.⁸ In the Northern Panhandle, Sen. Laura Chapman defeated Del. Shawn Fluharty, who left the House of Delegates to challenge her.¹ The Beckley and Parkersburg metro areas voted Republican by 27.8 and 26.7 points.

Neither of West Virginia’s U.S. Senate seats is on the ballot in 2028. All 100 House of Delegates seats and half the state Senate will be: delegates serve two-year terms and senators four. The constitution bars a governor who has served all or part of two consecutive terms from the term that follows.³ In Washington, with Democrats taking the U.S. Senate, West Virginia will not have a senator in the majority for the first time since the 2003 to 2007 period, MetroNews reported, and Capito said Republicans are trying to strengthen their appeal to voters.⁹