Democratic West Virginia senator calls the Inflation Reduction Act, hailed as ‘biggest step on climate crisis’, a ‘radical agenda’
Democratic West Virginia senator calls the Inflation Reduction Act, hailed as ‘biggest step on climate crisis’, a ‘radical agenda’
You can’t gerrymander a statewide race like senator or governor, because everyone in the state gets to vote, there’s no districts to draw.
At a national level (as in its three house reps) it’s so red that no matter how you draw it they’re all going to be red.
At the state level, they have 100 house districts and 34 for the senate drawn by the Republican legislature that are certainly gerrymandered (couldn’t find much about the specifics though except this.)
See my comment below, you can absolutely gerrymander the state level politicians that make the laws for the statewide elections.
I agree the gerrymandering of state districts can definitely influence the outcome of statewide races, but they cannot directly gerrymander the senate race because the only “district” is the state itself which cannot be redrawn.
So looking at the original question, are they gerrymandering the senate seat? No, they can’t. Are they unfairly influencing outcomes of the race through other means? Probably. Will it make a difference in terms of WV voting for a dem that’s not Manchin (ie is it “real”)? Probably no because the only thing keeping a (more or less) Dem senator in a state that went 70% for Trump is incumbency and his special relationship to the coal industry.