CHARLESTON, W.Va. –Members of the West Virginia Republican Party joined forces Monday evening in Charleston for a Trump 47 Volunteer Engagement Rally ahead of the November General Election.
The rally saw West Virginia GOP Chairman Matt Herridge and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey speak on how to prepare for election season and how to better support and promote former President Donald Trump.
Tresa Howell, who is running for House of Delegates, District 52, says the rally is bringing together a unified body ready to vote.
“What you see is the GOP candidates, representatives, and everyone behind the scenes that are working to get everyone across the finish line,” Howell said Monday evening. “We are unified, and we are ready for November the 5th.”
Morrisey says the event is showing the party’s energy.
“This is a great event,” Morrisey said. “There’s so much energy here in West Virginia.”
The rally was also put on to show the confidence among party members that their state would be red come November. Joshua Higginbotham says he and others are confident West Virginia will be a Republican state across the board.
“I think that most of the people here are assuming that there is going to be a Republican blowout in a few weeks,” Higginbotham said. “I think Republicans are going to win up and down the ballot and we can tell that the energy is really strong in this room tonight.”
While many in the room at Recovery Sports Grill in Charleston were confident in how election season would look, Morrisey says it’s going to take a full effort for his party up until the end.
“People are still working hard,” Morrisey said. “We have to knock on doors, we have to make calls, we have to not take anything for granted.”
Another point made clear during the rally was the interaction with those in other states. Herridge and others spoke on members of the party needing to reach out to friends and family ahead of the election to convince them to get out and vote and vote for Trump.
Higginbotham says there are quite a few states up in the air that may decide the 2024 General Election.
“West Virginia is almost guaranteed to be a Republican state up and down the ballot, but there’s a lot of other states that are at play, probably as many as 10 states,” Higginbotham said. “You’ve got to look at Wisconsin, look at Florida, look at Pennsylvania, Michigan, and if you have friends or family there, encourage them to vote.”
Morrisey, who will be running for governor in November against Huntington Mayor Steve Williams, says he, too, is confident West Virginia will vote Republican, but he wants to hit other benchmarks besides just winning the election.
“Every vote does matter. First of all, I want West Virginia to be the biggest pro-Trump state in the nation, and we want to get a lot of people out to vote,” Morrisey said. “I know that it makes a difference because of the popular vote issue, and also, you want to go in with a mandate to govern.”
While the rally was mostly focused on the presidential election to come, Higginbotham says getting out to vote for local positions should be one of the main reasons to exercise the right.
“Even if there’s a blowout statewide and you get Republicans at the top of the ticket that win everything here, honestly, your day-to-day life, it matters more who your county commissioner, your sheriff and your city council member is,” Higginbotham said.
Howell’s final message from the rally was for citizens to not wait any longer to register to vote.
“We have 21 days prior to the election to get registered to vote, so please don’t wait until the last minute,” Howell said.