One Month until Election Day, Republicans have modest advantages in two key State Senate Districts
West Virginia Democrats hope to ride a blue-wave environment to gain seats in the State Senate. One month out, that looks unlikely in both the State Navigate forecast and our polls of two State Senate districts both parties view as competitive races. The battlefield would need to change with a major October surprise benefiting Democrats for either seat to defy the odds.
Last week, State Navigate conducted its first-ever fully live, weighted polls of four state legislative districts as well as the state of Vermont. This included Senate District 1 in the Northern Panhandle and Senate District 8 in Roane and Clay counties, as well as part of Putnam, Jackson, and Kanawha counties. Laura Wakim Chapman (R-Wheeling) is running for re-election against Delegate Shawn Fluharty (D-Wheeling) in Senate District 1, and Senate District 8 is an open race between Lance Wheeler (R-Charleston) and Kim Hundley (D-Charleston).
State Navigate polled both of the Republican primaries in SD-1 and SD-8 earlier this year with remarkable accuracy: both polls earned an A- grade from our polling team, as our SD-8 Republican primary poll nailed Wheeler’s 3-point margin of victory, and our SD-1 Republican primary poll (which was fielded two months before the primary) projected a 25-point Chapman win, only 6 points off from Chapman’s actual margin of victory 73 days after our poll finished fielding. You can read more about our West Virginia Republican primary polling success this year here.
Of note, Trump’s approval in our polls almost exactly matches our new tool that shows the President’s approval by state legislative district each day, with the President having a +2 net approval in SD-1 (which he won by 39 points in 2024) and a -7 net approval in SD-8 (which he won by 27 points in 2024) in both our polls and our tracker.
Governor Morrissey is less popular than Trump in both districts: his net approval is even in SD-1 (which he won by 34 points in 2024) and, shocking to our polling committee, -30 in SD-8 (which he won by 11 points in 2024). It’s more likely than not that the Governor’s approval is underwater by high single digits to low double digits statewide. In August, we found in a survey of registered independents likely to vote in the general election (an estimated 20% of West Virginia’s electorate in midterm years) that Governor Morrisey had a -40 net approval with this group. Privately, Republicans running in competitive state legislative races this year admit they know of the Governor’s poor approval standing with voters, and many have distanced themselves from him in the final stretch of the campaign, especially since his approval of three potential nuclear campus locations in Boone, Mason, and Jackson counties, and his withdrawal shortly after.
You can check the full results for each poll below.