This shouldn’t really come as a surprise to plugged-in observers. But less than a day after the ink was dry on the compromise agreement that came out of the West Virginia legislature setting up a special election this November to replace Robert Byrd, Gov. Joe Manchin announced he’s running in it.
A little more than 12 hours after signing the special election change into law, Manchin confirmed that he will seek the final two years of Byrd’s term. He enters the race as the odds-on favorite, regardless of who Republicans nominate.
Despite indicating early on that he was likely to run for the seat, Manchin said at a news conference that he labored over the decision. Winning would require him to yield the final two years of his second and final term as governor.
The big question now is whether Rep. Shelly Moore Capito, the only Republican who can make this interesting, gets in the race. The Capito Carve-out (the strange exception made by the legislature that allows a person to run in a regularly-scheduled general election and the special election at the same time, and seems to have only one person in mind…) certainly increases the odds that she’ll run, now that she doesn’t have to give up her day job. Her spokesperson says that Capito won’t announce anything today, but spouted some boilerplate that makes her sound candidate-ish.
“Congresswoman Capito will announce her decision soon after determining how she can best continue to serve West Virginia on important issues like protecting the state’s vital energy industry, where she has been the loudest and sometimes only critic of the Obama administration’s assault on coal,” Capito spokesman Kent Gates said.
Swing State Project will be holding off on assigning a rating on this race until Capito’s intentions are clear. With Manchin’s very high approval ratings and across-the-boards institutional support (from the AFL-CIO to the Chamber of Commerce), either way he starts as a solid favorite.
He doesn’t pull a Coakley.
If Capito runs and wins both the Senate race and her House race and GOP picks up 39 seats in Nov and takes a 1 seat lead in the House the Special Election in her WV seat could decide control of the House!
How much money do you think would then pour into that race?
So uh GOPVOTER you were saying? JK, I could not help it. Manchin will have to really screw this up to lose, really screw it up. However he has done everything right so far and it is hard (not impossible) to screw up Manchin’s lead over the course of three months. Lean to likely D if Capito runs and likely to safe it is Ireland or Byrd’s 06 opponent runs.
Coakley won a lower-level statewide office in 2006 with Patrick winning in a landslide on top of the ticket. Her state defaults to Democrats, and she ran a bad campaign for Senate.
Manchin won at the top of the ticket, in a state that is far from a default Dem state with the Dem incumbent riddled with scandal (Bob Wise). Coakley was supposed to win because of the situation, not because of her. Manchin is supposed to win because of HIM, not the state of affairs in West Virginia.
Probably more like Likely Dem but Captio has the potential to keep the race competitive. Manchin will start the race with a decisive edge.
Likely Democratic Hold barring a disaster, which I doubt will happen.
If Manchin loses this, the Democrats have a lot to worry about elsewhere.
so if capito were to run would her house seat have a new primary?
firmly in Democratic hands (and of course the Governor’s mansion as well), why was there a need for a compromise since it seems to benefit only one person, Republican representative Capito?
He is more conservative than me, but I understand he is the best candidate for this race. Then I glad of see he run.
I think this race is now in a Safe Democratic (because he has not challengers still), and the reupublicans with the best (Moore Capito) only can move this to Leans Democratic before the polls.
I think Moore Capito and the surname Moore is not as popular as the people think in West Virginia. Arch Moore, her father, was elected for Governor for three no-consecutive terms but loses for the senate against J Randolph in 1978. He serve too in the US House for six consecutive terms. This is a good political record for a republican in West Virginia, and some people put Arch Moore as a mith but he has too some scandals in his life and goes to the jail for more than two years after his last term cause of political corruption. Sure some people in West Virginia remember that.
so she won’t try when she could be better prepared in the future.