As Election Day approaches next week, five Democrats from across the state with varied backgrounds are vying to win the Democratic nomination to flip the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.
Capito — who is running for reelection against state Sen. Tom Willis, R-Berkeley, Alexander Gaaserud, Bryan McKinney, Janet McNulty and David Purkey — joined the Senate in 2015. During the 2014 election, she won over Natalie Tennant, flipping the seat red and becoming the first Republican to represent West Virginia in the Senate in more than 50 years.
Candidates for the seat on the Democratic ballot this election include Thornton Cooper, Rachel Fetty Anderson, Jeff Kessler, Rio Phillips and Zach Shrewsbury.
They range from working as community organizers and longtime candidates to attorneys, including a former state lawmaker. Though their backgrounds are diverse — some lifelong West Virginians, others transplants who have made the state their home — they do agree on several issues.
In interviews with West Virginia Watch, all five Democratic candidates said, if elected to federal office, they would support passing the Medicare For All Act, ending Citizens United to limit corporate money in politics, reigning in federal powers afforded to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reimplementing the right to receive an abortion, uplifting LGBTQ+ services and rights and reinforcing certain regulations and programs cut by the Trump Administration over the last year and a half.
They all hold concerns about the recent uptick in data center developments nationwide and said they’d support federal policies to put guardrails on the industry that protect local communities and private data.
They all also said that the ongoing war in Iran is illegal and criticized how President Donald Trump and Congress have dealt with other international conflicts, including with Russia and Ukraine and Palestine and Israel.
Early voting for the 2026 primary election ends on May 9. Election Day polls will be open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 12. To check your voter registration information and find your polling place, click here.
Read on below to hear more about each Democratic candidate in the U.S. Senate race and why they think they would be the best option to represent West Virginia in Congress.
Thornton Cooper
At 76-years-old, this election marks Cooper’s 12th attempt at running for public office. The attorney and retired state employee served more than 10 years — from 2006 to 2015 — on the Kanawha County Democratic Executive Committee.
Cooper said he first ran for office in 1987, when he sought election in the city clerk race in South Charleston. Since then, he’s had his name on the ballot running for the state House of Delegates several times as well as for Secretary of State in 2024, among others.
“Well, I’m 0 for 11 and hoping this race could be the magic one,” Cooper said. “I keep running for a reason. I want to raise the consciousness of the voters about what the real issues are. A lot of stuff you see on TV or listen to on the radio or are getting on your postcards is all about stuff that is not of great interest to the average voter.”
Cooper said that he hopes his presence in the race will start conversations that keep real issues — like the state’s low income, high poverty rates and growing vulnerability to the impacts of climate change — at the forefront of conversations. He frames his long-shot bids as an act of leadership for “people who feel like they’re voiceless in this state” where a Republican supermajority has now directed statewide policies for almost a decade.
Cooper said the largest issue he would like to see addressed congressionally is raising the federal minimum wage to at least $15 per an hour. Currently, the federal minimum wage is $7.25. In West Virginia, it sits at $8.75 an hour for businesses with at least six employees at one location.
In 1969 — when he was 19 years old — Cooper said he made $1.60 an hour. Adjusting for inflation, that would be $14.84 today.
“I want people to have that same purchasing power, I want to see us grow in that way and give people the ability to lift themselves out of poverty for the good of everyone in West Virginia and beyond,” Cooper said. “We know that we’re a working class, blue-collar state. We always have been. Our people deserve to be paid their worth.”
A climate activist for decades, Cooper also wants to see a renewed focus on regulations that are proven to protect the environment and public health. He wants to see less investment in fossil fuel energy and more attention given to renewables and green energy initiatives that could offset the real and present consequences of climate change.
Internationally, Cooper said he believes there is probable cause to file another round of articles of impeachment against Trump for starting “an illegal war” with Iran. He said he would support such a move.
“All these billions of dollars spent, running down our stockpile, getting Americans killed and wounded, killing and wounding thousands and thousands of people in Iran — that’s illegal, and he should be removed as president, in my opinion, based on those facts,” Cooper said. “I would be fair and balanced in an impeachment trial, but we can’t ignore that this is an abuse of powers.”
Rachel Fetty Anderson
A public interest attorney in Morgantown, Fetty Anderson said she spends most of her time working for people who have nowhere else to go. She represents individuals with disabilities, those who have survived abuse and neglect and others who have few resources to fight the battles in front of them.
Fetty Anderson previously served on Morgantown City Council, her only stint in elected office. She moved to West Virginia from New Mexico in 2007, and has spent the last 20 years raising her own family and working to improve the community around her by serving with food pantries, nonprofit organizations and more.
Fetty Anderson said she grew up in a difficult environment. Her family life was complicated and “profoundly” abusive as her father struggled with severe mental illness and her mother pushed evangelical Pentecostal beliefs on her and her siblings. She’s seen firsthand how abuse, substance use disorder and other issues that West Virginians face daily can uproot lives and present challenges.
As the only woman in the primary race, Fetty Anderson said she’s running for U.S. Senate because she can resonate with other West Virginians who have been through similar experiences as her.
“I ran for this seat because I wanted someone to vote for — and nobody on that ballot at that time was ready to represent women, children, families or the elderly in West Virginia,” Fetty Anderson said. “My whole life has been about families in crisis. I know what brings West Virginians to their knees, and I’m running because somebody who understands that has to be in the room.”
She said universal health care is sorely needed in West Virginia and the nation. The current healthcare system, she said, has “failed” and played a central role in any sort of case — abuse, neglect and even divorce — that she’s handled throughout her career.
Fetty Anderson said a core issue for her if elected to the Senate would be codifying Roe vs. Wade and the right to reproductive care and abortion for pregnant people. She believes in defending and codifying the Equal Rights Amendment and is angry that past and current elected officials — including Capito — have undermined its importance.
Overall, Fetty Anderson said she wants to be a voice for West Virginians to fight against what she called a growing movement toward “outright fascism” in Congress and U.S. politics as a whole. She wants to see Congress work to reimplement “checks and balances” against the executive branch and ensure that existing institutions — like the Department of Education — aren’t just preserved, but reinforced.
“When I see West Virginians in impossible situations, I know exactly what that feels like. Most of the time, people here are just doing the best they can in profoundly difficult circumstances,” Fetty Anderson said. “The reason I filed to run for this seat is because I was qualified for the job. I have done the work to understand what is happening in the state on many different levels, and I’m very aware of how we’re affected by the federal government’s decisions and by a lack of representation.”
Jeff Kessler
Once a leader in the state Legislature, Kessler is re-entering the political realm this year as he vies for U.S. Senate. From 1997-2017 the Moundsville-based attorney represented residents of the state’s Northern Panhandle in the state Senate. He served as West Virginia Senate president — the highest position in the state Legislature — from 2010 until Republicans flipped the body red in 2015.
Now nearly 10 years out from his last time holding elected office, 70-year-old Kessler said he felt the need to reenter public office after seeing Capito and the rest of West Virginia’s congressional delegation vote in support of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
That bill — among other things — cut Medicaid, leaving thousands of West Virginians who rely on the government sponsored health care program at risk.
“That was personal to me. The (One Big Beautiful Bill) did a lot of bad things — it cut social safety net programs, it stopped funding for research initiatives, it hurt a lot of people in a lot of ways — but the Medicaid cuts specifically, that’s an attack on West Virginia,” Kessler said.
During his time as state Senate president, Kessler led the charge to expand Medicaid in the state of West Virginia. Around 2011 — a year after the Affordable Care Act was enacted under then-President Barack Obama — newly elected Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin asked Kessler, as Senate president, what policies he wanted to see undertaken in West Virginia.
“My number one answer was that I wanted to see Medicaid expanded in the state. I knew it wouldn’t be easy — the ACA, like Obama, was deeply unfavorable in the state of West Virginia. But I knew it would help a lot of our people,” Kessler said. “(Tomblin) wasn’t on board at first, he was hesitant, but I was able to lay out for him why it would help our state in particular and he agreed.”
In 2014, the state voted to expand the health care services with Tomblin’s support.
Now, more than 10 years later, Kessler said it’s a travesty to see those efforts undone as more than one third of West Virginians stand at risk of losing their benefits or seeing dramatic increases in costs due to cuts under the One Big Beautiful Bill.
“These are policies that are really going to hurt people in very direct and real ways,” Kessler said. “We must stand against that.”
Kessler said, if elected to Congress, he would work to “roll back” harmful provisions in the Big Beautiful Bill. He also would prioritize fixes to the state’s crumbling infrastructure, including investing in broadband for the entire state and ensuring basic amenities — like water, roads and bridges — work as they should.
Kessler said he would support the creation of a $5 trillion national “infrastructure bank” funded through U.S. Treasury bonds, which would lend money for water, roads, bridges and broadband projects. He said these are projects that West Virginia could never afford to undertake on its own, but that are sorely needed.
Overall, Kessler said he’s “fed up” with culture-war politics and wants to see an end to attacks against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives and issues related to those who benefit from them, including people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, women and more.
While he’s faced criticisms for some of his previous votes as a state senator — specifically those related to abortion laws and limiting access — Kessler was adamant that he believes in a women’s right to access reproductive healthcare, including abortion. He said current laws against abortion are “nothing short of overreach” and he vowed to work in Congress to codify Roe vs. Wade.
Kessler said he believes he’s the best candidate to take on a Republican for the U.S. Senate seat in November, and his record as a public servant working for West Virginians makes him the most qualified.
“I’m the only candidate in this race who’s actually held office at every level — city, county and state. I’ve written the laws, I’ve run the Senate, I’ve balanced budgets, I’ve prosecuted cases and I’ve helped build water and sewer systems. I know how government works, and how it doesn’t,” Kessler said. “What sets me apart is I’ve got the background, the experience and the compassion to serve the people of this state — not the special interests that treat our legislators like puppets.”
Rio Phillips
A newcomer to West Virginia and the state’s political realm, Phillips said he moved to the state in 2020 after making friends here through community organizing efforts elsewhere. He said he was involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement — an anti-capitalist initiative that brought attention to the influence of money in politics — in 2011 and spent the next several years working in states and communities across the country.
After Occupy, Phillips — who then went by Chris Phillips — said in 2013 that he had moved on to organizing in other communities, including in Buffalo and western New York. Per a social media post from December 2011, Occupy Buffalo cut ties with Phillips due to “personal attacks” and policy “breaches.”
Phillips said he is the “true progressive, working-class, populist” candidate running as a Democrat for U.S. Senate in West Virginia this election, while the other candidates largely represent “gradient scales of corporate neoliberalism.”
Phillips said his largest initiative if elected to the U.S. Senate would be confronting West Virginia’s ongoing and overlapping water crises, which leave thousands in the state unable to drink the water that comes from their home taps while others rely on contaminated drinking water sources and wells.
He said he would introduce S.T.R.E.A.M., or “the Strategic Treatment for the Rehabilitation of Environmental Aquatic Management.” Phillips said it would be an “industrial level cleanup operation” that would run around the clock in West Virginia, with every level of responder — from water testers to those certified to clean hazardous waste — ready to respond to any water-specific incident while working to also prevent them from occurring in the first place.
Phillips said he wants to see cannabis recreationally legalized so West Virginia can use that tax revenue to fund his initiatives and provide sorely needed infrastructure upgrades.
He also said he is a “pacifist” who has been protesting wars involving the U.S. since 2001. If elected to Congress, he said, he would work to push anti-war messaging and cut military spending.
He said he would want to start caucuses in the Senate focused on pro-Palestine issues and Medicare For All. He would want to join the Senate committees on the budget and intelligence.
Phillips’ personal TikTok account — which is public — features numerous videos from 2022 and 2023 where he questions settled science and facts, including the cause of natural disasters and whether U.S. astronauts landed on the moon in 1969. He also platforms conspiracy theories like the Earth being flat, among others.
When asked, Phillips said that while he does not believe the Earth is flat, he spent a lot of time around people who did when the videos were made and wanted to “play host to the discussion” surrounding the soundly debunked conspiracy. His videos have thousands of views.
He said he could not say one way or another whether the moon landing was real.
“I do think a healthy questioning of authority is always important, and I will always encourage people to ask more questions of the government. Do I believe that we landed on the moon? I’m not 100% sure,” Phillips said. “Do I know that we didn’t? No. Do I know that we did? No. For me, it’s very murky. I have a lot of questions.”
Despite his former involvement in “ConspiracyTok,” Phillips said he is a devout supporter of science and scientific research. If elected to Congress, he said he would fight to ensure the cuts made under Trump to research initiatives would be restored and scientists and researchers who lost their jobs would be reinstated.
Though this is his first earnest run for office, Phillips previously ran what he called “symbolic” campaigns for U.S. president as an independent in 2016 and 2020 due to anger at the two “major parties.”
Since coming to West Virginia, Phillips said he’s focused on continuing his brand of community organizing. He hosts a large online “operation,” regularly posting on his official and personal Facebook pages about other candidates in the U.S. Senate race as well as Trump and what he views as the failure of Republican policies and of other Democrats to confront those policies.
He spoke of existing organizations that work on the same issues as him — homelessness, environmentalism, poverty, addiction and more — in terms of “content” and “engagement,” saying many have been “hesitant” to throw support behind him until after the primary. But individuals, he said, have come out to support him in droves.
“Our engagement is so good that we are overwhelmed by that activity (online), and there’s not much more that we are able to do,” Phillips said. “It commands all of our time doing that because so many people right now like standing up and saying, ‘Hey, I’m with you.’”
Phillips also said he and his team have undertaken doorknocking operations throughout the state, appealing to voters through grassroots efforts.
Since 2025, Phillips credits himself and his campaign with “single-handedly” leading efforts in West Virginia to protest against Trump’s reelection as president and policies that have come under him.
“Nobody was protesting after he got elected again, we were the ones that filled that void, that silence,” Phillips said. “We just spread out across the state.”
Phillips said he was behind the 50501 protests in the state last year, which started in February as a nationwide, anonymous and online movement spread through word-of-mouth posts on sites like Reddit and Facebook. He was present and spoke at the first protest in February, where he told this reporter at the time that his name was “Rio DeCielo” and that he got involved by showing up to the event with his own microphone and speaker to rally the crowd.
He said his campaign also started the Hands Off and the No Kings protests and rallies in West Virginia, which were also both part of national movements against the Trump administration and other Republican policies.
Phillips said that, if he wins the primary election, he believes he is the most qualified to beat a Republican in the November general election.
“There are a lot of people that believe that I, as a working class fighter who will not mince words, (am) the right selection,” Phillips said. “We are genuinely looking at winning this thing. We have all the momentum online. We have the largest, strongest movement, and we would be honored to work with anybody that wants to see the working class truly rise up and get what they deserve in West Virginia.”
Zach Shrewsbury
This marks Shrewsbury’s second attempt at a U.S. Senate run, after he campaigned for former Sen. Joe Manchin’s open seat in 2024, but lost in the primary to former Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott. Former Gov. Jim Justice won the seat over Elliott.
Shrewsbury said that in the two years since that race, much of his work and stances have remained the same and he’s focused on ensuring his name recognition and the movement he started to build in the previous election remains.
“I really haven’t stopped campaigning since I started the last one, whether that’s through different organizing or actions,” Shrewsbury said. “I’ve continued to work across the state, up and down, still doing my mutual aid work and other things.”
Shrewsbury said he believes he is the most electable candidate against a Republican in the November general election because he has “cross-party” support from other Republicans and independent voters.
In August 2025, a massage therapist alleged in a social media post that Shrewsbury “groped” her, grabbing her leg and thigh without her consent during a massage the month before. Per her post, she was massaging his upper body when Shrewsbury reached out and grabbed her thigh. She said she froze and moved her leg away, after which he continued to allegedly grab her three more times throughout the massage. She said she later addressed the inappropriate touching with him, where she said he allegedly apologized for making her uncomfortable.
In a statement the day after the allegation was posted, Shrewsbury said he “reflexively” grabbed the massage therapist due to her hitting a sore spot in his back. He said he was “truly sorry for making her feel uncomfortable” and that while “intention doesn’t erase impact,” he did not mean to harm her. He said the incident was a “lesson” in how actions and words can “land with others.”
When asked about the allegations in April, Shrewsbury said he stands by his initial statement.
“There was nothing sexual about it. It’s unfortunate that everything went that direction with messaging, but I stand by what I said. I have my apology for someone … feeling uncomfortable. I never want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, but there was a lot taken out of context heavily, and I’m not going to go really further into it at this moment,” Shrewsbury said. “I apologize for making someone feel uncomfortable. That’s never what I want to happen, and that’s what a good person should do, is apologize. If anyone wants to message me about it, they absolutely can. I’ve been an open book, so people are welcome to (direct message) me.”
Throughout this election cycle, Shrewsbury has been actively battling a cancer diagnosis. He said the experience — which has included chemotherapy treatment and several surgeries that left him with a metal femur and reliance on a cane to walk — “expanded his view” on how people with disabilities and illnesses suffer under the current healthcare system.
A military veteran, he receives his health insurance through Veterans Affairs. He knows that thousands of West Virginians who have similar needs and have undergone their own medical struggles have not been afforded the same kind of care. If elected, he wants to see universal healthcare adopted to change that.
“If I didn’t have VA health insurance, I wouldn’t be able to get the treatment I have right now, and frankly, I’d be dead,” Shrewsbury said. “I technically have that universal health care through the federal government, because the VA pays. One of my surgeries was $175,000 and I’ve had five of those. Who could afford that?”
If elected to the U.S. Senate, Shrewsbury said he wants to see a federal push for infrastructure funding and rehabilitation. He believes an “Appalachian New Deal” is necessary to ensure West Virginia and the rest of the struggling region is able to compete economically with the rest of the country and the world.
Shrewsbury said that, as a senator, he would ensure that “good-paying, union jobs” were at the forefront of the nation’s energy strategy. He wants to see a “just transition” away from coal and fossil fuels to renewable energy infrastructure — like windmills and solar power — that could be manufactured in West Virginia. Those opportunities, he said, would create more jobs for people who are struggling with poverty and those attempting to re-enter the workforce after being incarcerated or overcoming substance use disorder.
Shrewsbury framed his campaign as the best one in the state “for working people.” He said he is able to work across party lines while keeping true to his message, and has the name recognition and network to get work done in congress.
“From where I’ve been, I believe I’m the best person to give West Virginians a voice in D.C. and fight for the bills we need to get us on the right track,” Shrewsbury said. “Come this general election, there’s only one person in this race that can get the Republican and independent votes to come over for a message they agree with, and I’m the candidate to do that.”
This article originally appeared on West Virginia Watch.
West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.
