I have said, time and again, that the Democrat majority in WV will not change until the older folks who actually believe the Dems are representing them and pulling those straight tickets.. die-off

West Virginians LOVE incumbents (Bob Byrd, The Carpet Bagger, Mollahan, Bagdad Rahall, Rich Rod, etc) and they HATE change. With the WV trait of loving incumbents and hating change, I do not see single member districts nor Democrats loosing control in the near future.

B.K. says it is going to take a financial disaster to bring change. When the gambling dollars dry up and the coal industry down turns, I expect the Democrats to go into a taxing frenzy that will drive business and jobs away.. that may be what is needed but is is going to be painful.

I agree with you in part, but would like to comment that the problem in the 30th district is the yellow dog “pull the tail on the rooster” eastern part of the district (i.e., the part historically dominated by labor unions), and the elitist liberals in South Hills who believe that the plebeians in said eastern part of the district aren’t competent enough to manage their own lives.

None of the crazies “representing” the 30th district would never survive the implementation of single member districts.

That having been said, Nancy Peoples Republic et al do not represent the 30th district any more than Bob Byrd and The Carpetbagger represent you.

I have been saying for years that the magic key to turning WV around is the simple (yet seemingly impossible) step of having single-member state house and state senate districts.

If you take 1,100,000 voters and divide by 100, there would be an average of 11,000 voters per SH district. (Obviously re-districting is based on population, so the range might be 8,000 to 14,000 voters out of 18,000 people.)

In a district with 11,000 voters of whom 60% vote in a non-Presidential election, the winner would thus need only 3,301 votes.

In WV, there are 340,000 registered Republicans (30%). The average district already HAS 3,400 Republican voters (340,000 divided by 100), 1,000 Independent and minor party, and 2,000-3,000 conservative Democrats.

There’s not more than a handful of districts (e.g. SH 32 and part of current SH44) where a committed, organized GOP candidate COULDN’T have a serious chance, and we would automatically have about 15 more GOP than we have now just based on historical precinct numbers (e.g. one of the 3 here in SH43). So even with no change at all except for single-member districts, I believe we would be at about 57D-43R, with the best yet to come.

We have been playing with a stacked deck for decades. The day we have a fair and even chance, we’ll come out ahead. And then we won’t have to joke about it!

I once heard a caller to Rush say: CREAM rises–SCUM floats.

You are obviously dealing with the “floaters”.

It’s got a lot to do with the “something for nothing” attitudes.