Mountain State Spotlight’s voter guide is now live, and I have good news and bad news. We asked candidates to align themselves with statements created based on feedback from hundreds of West Virginians, and many responded! The bad news is that we didn’t hear from far more candidates.
When we cover elections, our reporters talk with West Virginians across the state, asking what they want to hear candidates talk about as they vie for their votes.
We consistently hear that the topics on the minds of these regular, everyday West Virginians — parents, grandparents, students, business owners — were often a far cry from the issues that candidates have built their campaigns around.
Readers have consistently told us they could use more information about candidates’ positions on the issues. So in the lead-up to this year’s general election, we tried to get candidates on the record about where they stood on the issues that West Virginians told us mattered most to them.
Nearly 400 West Virginians shared with us, either in-person or through an online survey, what they thought candidates should be focused on this election season. Our team distilled those responses into five statements about issues like data centers, education, clean water and federal safety net programs.
Once we had the statements, Mountain State Spotlight editor-at-large Erica Peterson sent a request to fill out our survey to more than 240 candidates running to represent West Virginia in the state legislature and federal government.
Erica sent the request to the email each candidate used to file to run for office. Nearly a dozen of them bounced due to typos made by candidates when they filed. She corrected the typos and sent another mass email.
After that, we took a targeted approach, focusing on just a few competitive races where we had heard back from a candidate’s opponent. This part of the voter guide is most useful when multiple candidates for a particular office respond, so voters can better understand their choices. Erica emailed these candidates twice. Finally, we sent reporters to the Capitol during legislative interim meetings to chase down about 25 unresponsive incumbents. We’d heard from their opponents, but not from them.
Of the 244 we reached out to, 65 responded. Challengers were more responsive. About one in three new candidates filled out the survey. Only one in ten incumbents responded.
William Franko, a West Virginia University political scientist, said those numbers aren’t surprising.
“Incumbents may see only negatives to answering some of these questions,” Franko said.
“They feel like they have already made a connection with their voters.”
Our voter guide’s purpose is to ensure voters have the information they need to know they are voting for candidates who actually reflect their values, all in one place.
We believe getting candidates on the record about where they stand and address issues that matter to West Virginians is a key part of holding elected officials accountable.
Here are the statements we asked candidates to rate themselves on:
- West Virginia should fund infrastructure such as clean drinking water, high-quality roads and bridges, and local public schools before passing additional income tax cuts.
- The best way to ensure every West Virginia child receives a quality education is to ensure the Hope Scholarship is fully funded for all students with no eligibility restrictions.
- When federal funding is cut for social services like SNAP and Medicaid, the state should step in to ensure eligible West Virginians still have access.
- Legislation around data centers, namely 2025’s HB 2014, should be revised to return meaningful oversight and authority over such projects to local communities and governments.
- Lawmakers should direct more government economic development resources toward initiatives recommended by the state Chamber of Commerce, like childcare, high-speed internet and workforce training.
Candidates were asked to rate their level of agreement with each statement, on a scale from 0 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”). We also included a short space for them to share a brief explanation of their stance.
When one candidate in a race responded and their opponent did not, we indicated that in the guide.
If your candidate’s answers are missing, it’s because they didn’t respond to our survey. There’s still time for us to add their responses! Reach out to your candidates and ask them to email contact@mountainstatespotlight.org.
If you’re a candidate and didn’t respond, it’s not too late to let voters in your district know where you stand. Just email us and your response will be added to our guide.
