WEST VIRGINIA
      Nov. 3, 2020 U.S. Senate                                      

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+Shelley Moore Capito (R) i
547,454
 		70.28%
Paula Jean Swearengin (D)
 		210,309
 		27.00%
David Moran (L)
 		21,155
 2.72%

778,918
Registration: 1,269,219.
Plurality: 337,145 votes (43.28 percentage points).
WV Secretary of State


Notes: 
West Virginia has trended strongly Republican in the last several decades and 2020 was a good year for the GOP in the Mountain State.  In the Senate race, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R), won a second term, trouncing environmental activist Paula Jean Swearengin (D); also running was David Moran (L).  Meanwhile, Trump carried the state by 38.93 percentage points, Republicans won the races for governor and U.S. House and picked up three seats in the state Senate and 18 seats in the House of Delegates.

This was one of four Senate races in which both major party nominees were women.  Capito, 66, was elected to the Senate in 2014 after seven terms in the House and two terms in the House of Delegates.  Swearengin, a coal miner's daughter, had run a progressive challenge to Sen. Joe Manchin (D) for the 2018 Democratic nomination for Senate, tallying a bit more than 30-percent of the vote.

Three candidates competed in the June 9, 2020 Democratic primary.  Swearengin, building off her 2018 campaign, finished first with 71,725 votes (38.28%), defeating former state Sen. Robert Ojeda at 61,712 votes (32.93%) and former South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb at 53,944 votes (28.79%).  Capito faced little difficulty in the Republican primary, gaining 83.34% of the vote against Allen Whitt and Larry Eugene Butcher. 

In the general election, Capito refused to debate.  According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Capito campaign spent $4.0 million for the cycle and finished with cash on hand of $2.5 million compared to $2.0 million spent by the Swearingen campaign (>).


Campaign Managers:
Shelley Moore Capito  Joseph Reidy
Experience includes political director on U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins' campaign for U.S. Senate in the May 8, 2018 Republican primary.
 
Paula Jean Swearengin  David Graham
Campaign manager on Richard Ojeda's 2018 campaign for Congress in WV-3.  Candidate for Democratic nomination for WV House of Delegates District 24 in 2014.



 
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