MORGANTOWN — Seven people are seeking the new 2nd District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives: five Republicans and two Democrats. Today and Sunday we’ll take a first look at their campaign finances as filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Current GOP incumbents David McKinley and Alex Mooney are considered the front-runners. We’ll look at their figures on Sunday. Today we focus on the other three Republicans and the two Democrats.
State population loss led to the loss of a Congressional district for the 2022 election — the winner will be seated in 2023.
West Virginia has three districts for the remainder of this year, numbered north to south.
McKinley represents District 1, with 19 counties, including the Northern Panhandle. Mooney Represents District 2, with 17 counties, including the Eastern Panhandle. Carol Miller represents District 3, with all the rest.
The new map has District 1 covering 29 southern counties. District 2 covers 26, including both panhandles. District 2’s border counties are — from east to west — Hardy, Grant, Tucker, Randolph, Upshur, Lewis, Doddridge, Ritchie and Wood.
Republicans
The three other Republicans are Susan Buchser-Lochocki of Morgantown, Rhonda Hercules of Wheeling and Mike Seckman of West Union.
Buchser-Lochocki ran for U.S. president under the Green Party in 2020. The secretary of state’s election data doesn’t show any votes for her.
FEC has her April Quarterly report on file, covering the period of Jan. 1-March 31. It shows that her campaign was entirely self-funded. She gave her campaign $3,935.63 and spent it all, leaving a $0 balance.
Hercules, of Wheeling, appears as a Congressional candidate on the secretary of state’s candidate listing. Information she provided to The Dominion Post shows she is secretary of the Brooke County Republican Executive Committee.
However, FEC does not have her name or a campaign committee name on file for her.
Seckman is from West Union. FEC has his Pre-Primary report on file, covering Jan. 19-April 20.
He received $1,400 from individuals and gave his campaign $9,609.40, for a total $$11,009.40. He spent $10,821.40, leaving a balance of $188.
Democrats
Angela Dwyer of Martinsburg and Barry Wendell of Morgantown are the two Democratic candidates vying to take on the GOP primary winner in November. Wendell is a former two-term Morgantown City Council member.
Both have filed with the FEC but neither has submitted any data, indicating they did not raise or spend enough to meet the reporting threshold.
TWEET David Beard @dbeardtdp
EMAIL dbeard@dominionpost.com
