CHARLESTON — Congressman David McKinley will win re-election.
In the race, incumbent 1st District Congressman McKinley (R-W.Va.) faced a challenge from Kendra Fershee, the Democratic candidate.
After first taking office in 2011, McKinley is now in his 4th term in the U.S. House and did not face a challenger in the May 8 primary election.
In his last re-election bid in 2016, he won with 69 percent of the vote. His margin of victory was more than 60 percent in both 2014 and 2012. In 2010, he beat Democrat Mike Oliverio 50.4 percent to 49.6 percent to replace long-time Congressman Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), who was not renominated in that year’s primary, in the U.S. House.
He previously served for 14 years in the West Virginia House of Delegates and was a past West Virginia Republican Party chair.
A past political organizer and a litigation associate, Fershee is a professor in West Virginia University’s College of Law.
“People are working really, really hard to try to stay here, and they’re not able to,” she has said of West Virginia.
Fershee won the May Democratic primary with just more than 47 percent of the vote over Ralph Baxter and Tom Payne.
The 1st Congressional District includes the following counties in northern West Virginia: Barbour, Brooke, Doddridge, Gilmer, Grant, Hancock, Harrison, Marion, Marshall, Mineral, Monongalia, Ohio, Pleasants, Preston, Ritchie, Taylor, Tucker, Tyler, Wetzel and Wood.
With the 1st District are the cities of Wheeling, Morgantown, Clarksburg and Parkersburg.
Last week, McKinley and Fershee talked about West Virginia issues this election during an appearance on MetroNews “Talkline”with Hoppy Kercheval.
By Shauna Johnson
