By Stephen Smoot
Around the time that the West Virginia Republican Party emerged as the majority party in the Mountain State, it shepherded through changes regarding elections. The GOP dominated State Legislature passed an act making judicial elections non partisan.
Independents also received the privilege of voting in Republican Party primaries, giving them a stake in who would represent the GOP as its nominee in elections.
Primary voting emerged over a century ago as a response to public discontent over nominating conventions. Before the 20th century, conventions selected candidates rather than voters. This allowed the parties to maintain discipline in who represented the party and the party’s values and platform.
Over time, conventions gave way to primary elections to determine which candidate would represent the party in the general election to determine the overall winner of the office.
Again, the purpose of the primary elections still lay in selecting the nominee that would best represent the party, its values, and its platform of stated beliefs and intentions. Primaries, like conventions before them, were meant to serve the needs of the party as opposed to the electorate in general.
The political party itself governs access to its primary election. In January 2024, the WVGOP voted 65 to 54 to return Republican primary elections to Republicans only. Advocates of the measure, such as Delegate Jim Butler (R-Mason), explained that the inclusion of independents sometimes meant that the less conservative candidate of a set of primary contenders was chosen to represent the conservative political party.
Delegate Butler told West Virginia Metro News that “the more you allow independents and other non-affiliated voters to float around they will vote for candidates that have the shiniest piece of mail or best TV ad.” Currently, according to that same media outlet, about one fourth of registered state voters selected to be independent.
The West Virginia Democratic Party pounced on the issue as the state prepares for the return to fully partisan Republican primaries returns in 2026.
Additionally, the West Virginia State Legislature has returned partisan voting to judicial races. Charles Trump, at one time Senate Judiciary Chair, now on the West Virginia State Supreme Court of Appeals, was one of the driving forces behind the change.
According to the blog of the West Virginia State Senate when it passed last March, “supporters of the bill argued that all jurists enter the judiciary role with a certain political ideology that voters should be aware of when they go to the ballot box.”
It went on to add that “opponents of the bill contend that one’s political ideology has no bearing on whether they can interpret the law and render fair and impartial judgements.”
The legislation passed on a 22-12 vote.