CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Leaders, officials, and supporters of the West Virginia Republican Party took to the West Virginia Culture Center in Charleston Tuesday evening to celebrate their 2024 Road to Victory Dinner ahead of election season.
The sold-out fundraiser dinner saw multiple speakers including Governor Jim Justice, who spoke on his run for U.S. Senate.
West Virginia GOP Chairman Matt Herridge says the evening is a good chance to meet with people and see where things are as a party.
“It’s just really a nice night for fellowship, a nice night for collegiality, and just also learning a little bit about where things are going in this election cycle,” Herridge said.
Herridge also says he was thrilled seeing all the different backgrounds at the dinner with the same values.
“I’m so excited to see the Republican Party in West Virginia continuing to grow in such a way that we have many folks from the business community, from the religious community, from the academic and school community, all coming together, under what I’ll call the banner of faith, family, and freedom, our values,” Herridge said. “It’s so exciting and you can just feel the energy in the room tonight.”
Matt Herridge
While West Virginia has voted exclusively Republican in the Presidential Election since the turn of the century, Herridge knows that takes effort. He says the party agrees that they cannot grow complacent this time around.
“What I’m hearing is everyone is on the same page, which is, we feel optimistic, but no one wants to be overconfident,” Herridge said. “We know that the keys to winning this election, even in a super majority state like West Virginia are, number one, getting out the vote, and we as a Republican party are very focused on that, and number two is election integrity.”
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron also spoke Tuesday evening, and he believes West Virginia will vote red again in the 2024 Presidential Election. However, Cameron says it’s most important to push friends and families in battleground states to hit the polls.
“Encourage folks in those battleground states to get out,” Cameron said. “If you’re in Pennsylvania, if you’re in Nevada, if you’re in Arizona, if you’re in Georgia, if you’re in North Carolina, get out and encourage folks. If you’ve got friends and family members in those states, get them out.”
Herridge says the state’s GOP is taking that message to heart.
“Many West Virginians are, right now, making calls and may even be doing some door-knocking in our sister states like Pennsylvania, like North Carolina, and they’re going to go out there and talk about why it’s important to vote for former President (Donald) Trump and vote for the Republican ideals,” Herridge said.
Cabell County Commissioner and former member of the West Virginia House of Delegates Kelli Sobonya says she completed high school in the Pittsburgh area, and she has made an effort to talk to her friends and family in that area ahead of November.
Kelli Sobonya
“We still have family in the Steel City, so we have been doing all we can to make sure that they get out and vote, and it’s all hands-on deck,” Sobonya said. “We talked to some of our former high school colleagues, and we’ve really been working hard on social media and other means to try to make sure they know that Pennsylvania is very important.”
While the dinner made it a point for West Virginia Republican leaders to encourage out of state friends and family to exercise their right to vote, both Sobonya and Cameron understand the importance of West Virginians, themselves voting.
“It’s just as important to vote for the down ballot folks,” Cameron said. “I say that as somebody who ran for attorney general in Kentucky. It’s critical that you vote for the down ballot Republicans as well.”
Sobonya says she wants everyone to know that their voices matter, no matter the state.
“I think that every vote matters and I don’t want people that are in states that aren’t these determining, deciding states to think that they’re voice isn’t important,” Sobonya said. “The down ballots are also important, so it’s important that we all turn out to vote, whether we’re in one of those deciding states or not.”