Nick Rahall Unseated Before Serving 20th Term
Top Transportation Democrat Nick Rahall was yet another Obama supporter that fail victim in Tuesday’s election. The widely known incumbent from the 3rd Congressional District in West Virginia was seeking a 20th term but was ousted by Republican Evan Jenkins, whom was a former Democrat.
Congressman Nick Rahall has 38 years of experience but the last two years in West Virginia have been brutal. West Virginia is coal country and Rahall’s support for Obama over the years cost him the senate seat in 2014. Coal provides some of the West Virginia’s highest paying jobs and use to employ tens of thousands of local miners, operators and truck drivers.
Republican Evan Jenkins used this in his campaign attacks and did so effectively. The coal industry is the state’s bloodline. Thousands of coal miners and drivers have lost their jobs due to extreme regulations passed by President Obama. Jenkins used this to his advantage. Recent polls had already showed huge margins of disapproval for Obama and Democrats in West Virginia.
Environmental regulations have leveled West Virginia’s coal industry and the American coal industry. West Virginia isn’t the only state to face what others call “the war on coal.” Jenkins played his hand perfectly and while Nick Rahall spent a majority of his campaign claiming he was bipartisan, the state failed to think twice.
“Times are tough around here,” coal miner Tom McKinney told Truckers Logic. “I’ve seen both coal miners and coal truck drivers lose everything. Some have been forced to leave the state, take jobs that only pay minimum wage. After the last two years, Rahall didn’t stand a fighting chance.”
“We’ve taken a message of bringing new leadership to Washington from southern West Virginia that will fight for coal, that will fight for our values and that will stand up to the Obama agenda that’s been so devastating,” Jenkins said Tuesday night, according to the Associated Press. “I’m humbled by the results so far. I’m ready to get to work.”
Nick Rahall also made an appearance and thanked all of his supporters. “Because this election is ending, it does not mean that my service will end tonight,” Rahall said, according to AP. “One chapter ends and another begins. And no matter what is in that new chapter, I will continue to fight for our West Virginia way of life.”
