J. Nelson – Writer

I’m not generally a proponent of straight-ballot voting: Selecting candidates all from the same party. In past years, I would strongly encourage people to choose the candidate they feel would do the best job, regardless of party (split-ballot voting). But I don’t think I can do that anymore.

After three election cycles (if you count the 2022 midterms) spent interviewing West Virginia candidates for office, I can’t trust Republican candidates to do anything but fall in line behind the national party.

When we would conduct editorial board interviews, candidates from both parties would give pretty good answers, especially related to kitchen-table issues like roads, the state economy, and the opioid epidemic. We even found ourselves endorsing a handful of Republican candidates (especially for local offices).

But over the last two years, in particular, I have watched those same Republican politicians who had reasonable ideas when we interviewed them get into office and do nothing but pursue the culture-war issues that have dominated national rhetoric. They spend days upon days of the limited regular session arguing over non-issues, and they introduce bills and resolutions that make more problems than they fix or that make life harder for a specific minority group simply because they exist.

And while the Republicans are fighting over critical race theory in K-12 (which isn’t a thing, unless you count, you know, history as CRT), transgender athletes in sports (there are a handful in the entire state), and putting the Bible in public schools (which is obviously a violation of the First Amendment’s freedom from religion) …

Road funding bills go by the wayside. Economic development plans get half-assed. Approaches to the opioid and addiction crisis turn punitive. Child welfare laws get tossed aside. (I will always be a loud supporter of Raylee’s Law. Google Raylee Browning for the whole horrific story.) All the things West Virginia needs addressed get completely ignored.

I get that politicians will say whatever it takes to get into office, but I had naively hoped that the answers we would receive in our interviews were more indicative of the type of officeholder that person would be than their campaign materials. But it seems the commercials and flyers — especially the ones touting culture-war or extremist ideology — were a more accurate portrayal.

So far that’s held true for every Republican running for state-level office and above. (County commission and city council aren’t quite as bad in my experience.)

As a woman living in West Virginia, I can’t trust any Republican politician to get into office and work toward solving my state’s real issues. Because experience has taught me that Republican politicians will get into office and spend the next two to six years doing everything in their power to make my life and the lives of my loved ones as difficult as possible for no other reason than that we are not exactly like them.

I no longer care what candidates have to say about roads or jobs or housing. If they have an “R” by their name on the ballot — for my own safety and wellbeing — I cannot vote for them.

I hope politics gets back to the point when I can, in good conscience, vote for a candidate because I think they are the best one for the job, regardless of party affiliation. But so long as the national party’s extremist views set the tone for our local politics, I will never vote for a Republican.