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A curious fact, the last Republican to win was one Chapman Revercomb (in the aforementioned 1956). He previously won a full term in 1942 before being defeated, and in 1956, he won the remaining 2 years of a deceased Senator’s term (the senior Democrat Senator would also soon die, and the young Republican Gov. Cecil Underwood, appointed a Republican to the other seat in 1958, giving the GOP both seats going into the disastrous elections of that year, the biggest wipe-out for the GOP since popular elections began, and remains a record to this day, dropping from nearly half the body to 1/3rd — it would take 22 years to recover).

Anyway, getting back to Revercomb, a Conservative and pro-Civil Rights Senator, then-Congressman Robert Byrd decided to run against him (with New Dealer ex-Congressman Jennings Randolph taking on and beating the weaker GOP appointee, John Hoblitzell, in the other seat) and hammered Revercomb for, well, not taking the position an exalted Klan leader like Byrd would take. Byrd would defeat Revercomb and never worry about reelection again (with the media helping whitewash his racist record). Curiously, Randolph was the weaker of the two Senators, and in 1978, ex-Governor Arch Moore (that being Shelley’s dad) mounted a serious challenge and lost by an absurdly tiny margin (enough that the Dem/Union fraud machine in WV could’ve manufactured enough votes). Moore, as Governor, had actually beaten Jay Rockefeller in 1972 (though the latter would win 4 years later when Moore couldn’t run for a 3rd term).

The result of the 1978 election was that an elderly Randolph chose not to run in 1984, which gave then-Gov. Rockefeller his opening to buy the seat. Moore oddly chose not to run, instead opting for a return to the Governorship instead (which he won, only to get caught up in a corruption scandal and later went to prison). John Raese instead made his first attempt at the Senate and held Rockefeller to a relatively narrow win (Moore probably could’ve won had he run, though Rocky had beaucoup $$).

Always noteworthy about WV is that it has seemingly had a very small group of officeholders/candidates that have run decade after decade. Up to the ‘50s, you had Democrats that had been running since the ‘10s (Matt Neely, the Robert Byrd of his day, first won a 1913 special election for the House seat vacated by future 1924 Presidential nominee John W. Davis, noted as the last actual Conservative nominated by the Democrats — he would serve on and off as Congressman, Governor and Senator up until his death in 1958). From the ‘50s to the ‘90s, you had the same two Republicans running on and off for office (the only real successes - that being Cecil Underwood, who won the Governorship in 1956 (along with Sen. Revercomb, himself an officeseeker for 2 decades at that point) when he was all of 34, the youngest ever elected, and winning the same office again in 1996 at the age of 74, conversely the oldest ever elected) and the aforementioned Arch Moore, who was elected to Congress in 1956, served 12 years (the longest unbroken streak by a Republican post-1932, with his daughter breaking that record back in January), 8 years as Governor (1969-77), the run for Senator (1978), and a final return as Governor (1985-89)). Even John Raese, an ‘80s retread, was back to run into this decade, though has never won.

The seat that Moore-Capito is running for was last won by a Republican in 1942 (that being the same aforementioned Chapman Revercomb, who won and both seats). Perhaps the moral here is that it’s time to branch out from these few interlinked candidates going back 6 decades and put up some fresh blood.