This is Part 2 of a three-part series examining the 2026 West Virginia Republican Senate primaries. Part 1 covered the factions, the dysfunction, and what is at stake. Part 3 will cover the sleepers, the specials, and the rest of the board. Follow us on X @wvwasp and at wvwasp.com so you don't miss it.
If Part 1 was the big picture, this is where the picture gets specific. Six Republican Senate primaries will decide whether the current power structure in the upper chamber survives or gets replaced. These are the races where the factional battle described in Part 1 is playing out in real time, with real candidates, real money, and real consequences.
Here they are.
District 1: The Race That Could Hand Democrats a Seat
Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, Marshall Counties Republican primary: Sen. Laura Wakim Chapman (i) vs. Joe Eddy Democratic primary: Del. Shawn Fluharty (unopposed)
This is the most layered race on the board, and the one with the highest stakes for both parties.
Joe Eddy is the kind of candidate the pro-jobs recruitment operation was designed to produce. He is a retired engineer and the former head of Eagle Manufacturing, where he oversaw more than 400 employees. During Donald Trump’s first term, Eddy served as an advisor to the president on manufacturing issues. He is not a political operative. He is a business guy who decided the Senate needed someone who has actually run something.
Chapman won this seat in 2022 by flipping a Democratic district. But her first term has been turbulent. She resigned as chair of the Senate Health and Human Resources Committee after saying Senate President Randy Smith demanded a loyalty pledge she was not comfortable giving. She later argued publicly that Eastern Panhandle senators hold a disproportionate share of committee chairmanships at the expense of the Northern Panhandle. The logic of that complaint has a flaw: if her district is underrepresented in leadership, resigning a chair position only makes that worse.
More than one Republican insider tells the WASP that Chapman’s judgment, both political and personal, has drawn scrutiny in Charleston and could become a liability if Democrats decide to make it an issue in a general election against Fluharty.
And that general election matters. Fluharty, a sitting delegate from Ohio County, is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. He will be well funded and well organized. A Republican source familiar with the race told the WASP flatly: if Chapman survives the primary, she loses to Fluharty in November. The seat flips Democratic.
That assessment is backed by the numbers. Chapman, according to the same source, has received less than one-third of her campaign contributions from Republican donors. In a district that Trump carried with 68.7 percent in 2024, that fundraising profile is a warning sign.
Governor Morrisey made the District 1 dynamics even more interesting when he posted on social media calling it “one of the defining races” of 2026, framing the contest as “common sense conservatism versus lefty extremism” in a Chapman-versus-Fluharty matchup. The problem? Morrisey’s post made no mention of Joe Eddy. The Republican primary was treated as if it did not exist. For a governor whose own agenda would arguably be better served by the pro-jobs challengers winning, it was a curious choice.
Bottom line: This primary is not just about who represents the Northern Panhandle in the Senate. It is about whether Republicans keep the seat at all.
District 3: Azinger’s Survival Test
Pleasants, Ritchie, Wood, Wirt Counties Republican primary: Sen. Mike Azinger (i) vs. Del. Bob Fehrenbacher
Mike Azinger is one of the most conservative members of the Senate, and he is in trouble for the second straight cycle.
In 2022, Azinger won his primary with just 51.5 percent of the vote. That is not the margin of a senator whose district is satisfied with his representation. It is the margin of a senator who nearly lost and now has to do it again.
Fehrenbacher is an engineer and a sitting member of the House of Delegates. That matters for a practical reason most voters do not think about: a current delegate already has a voter contact operation. He has knocked on doors. He has attended local events. He has constituent relationships that a first-time candidate would need months to build. Fehrenbacher walks into this race with an infrastructure that Azinger’s 2022 challenger did not have.
The district covers the Mid-Ohio Valley, and the question is whether Azinger’s brand of hard-right conservatism still sells in a region where the economic concerns that people like Greg Thomas and Senator Tom Takubo have been hammering are deeply felt. Parkersburg is not a culture war town. It is a town that wants to know where the next paycheck is coming from.
Bottom line: If Azinger survived 2022 by the skin of his teeth against a lesser-known opponent, a sitting delegate with a ground game could finish the job.
District 8: The Three-Way Test of the Takubo Coalition
Kanawha, Putnam, Jackson, Roane, Clay Counties Republican primary: Sen. T. Kevan Bartlett (i) vs. Dr. Steven Eshenaur vs. Lance V. Wheeler
This is the race that will tell you whether the Takubo recruitment model works outside of Kanawha County’s urban core.
Bartlett is not a newcomer to the Legislature. He was appointed to the House of Delegates in 2019 by Governor Jim Justice after the death of Del. Sharon Malcolm, but lost his Republican primary in 2020 to Dana Ferrell. Governor Morrisey gave him a second chance in January 2025, appointing him to the Senate after Mark Hunt resigned to become state auditor. He carries voting records from both chambers and some name recognition, particularly in western Kanawha County, but he has never won a contested election.
Eshenaur is an ER physician at Jackson General Hospital and the health officer for the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department. A GOP insider described his resume to the WASP as “unbelievable” and said Eshenaur is “out working the other candidates.” He is one of Takubo’s healthcare-sector recruits, which makes this race a direct referendum on whether voters in a sprawling, largely rural district will respond to a candidate whose pitch is competence and professional achievement rather than ideology.
Wheeler is the wild card. He previously ran for this district in 2014 and has served as a Kanawha County Commissioner. But a Republican source close to the race told the WASP that Wheeler “voted for several tax increases as a County Commissioner and Kanawha County lost jobs during his tenure.” In a primary where jobs and the economy are the central argument, that record could be a problem.
The same source acknowledged the difficulty of handicapping a three-way race where all three candidates have limited name recognition across the district. In a race like this, turnout and ground game matter more than usual.
Bottom line: If Eshenaur wins, the Takubo coalition proved it can compete in rural West Virginia. If Bartlett holds on as the appointee, the incumbent faction dodged a bullet. If Wheeler splits the vote in the wrong direction, anything can happen.
District 9: The Split That Changes Everything
Fayette, Raleigh, Wyoming Counties Republican primary: Sen. Rollan Roberts (i) vs. Dr. Michael Antolini vs. Del. Adam Vance
This race looked like a long shot for the challengers until it became a three-way.
Roberts won his 2022 primary with just 51.7 percent of the vote, another incumbent who survived but did not exactly inspire confidence. A Republican source familiar with the race told the WASP that Roberts, described as being closely aligned with Sen. Brian Helton, “spent much of the last year campaigning in Wyoming County.”
Then Adam Vance, a sitting delegate, entered the race. And the math changed.
According to a source close to the challenger operation, the votes Roberts was cultivating in Wyoming County will now go to Vance, who represents that area in the House. That leaves Roberts fighting on two fronts: Vance taking his rural base and Antolini, a family doctor and small business owner, competing strongly in Raleigh County, which makes up the vast majority of the district’s population.
Antolini’s candidacy was considered uphill before Vance filed. Now it may be the race where the challenger faction gets its most unexpected win.
Bottom line: Roberts needed a one-on-one race to survive. He did not get one. The Vance entry may have been the single most consequential filing of the entire cycle.
District 14: The President Pro Tem, the Veteran Politician, and the Party Switcher
Taylor, Preston, Tucker, Grant, Hardy, Mineral Counties Republican primary: Sen. Jay Taylor (i) vs. Marc Harman vs. Mike Manypenny
Jay Taylor is the Senate’s president pro tempore. He won his seat in 2022 with 76.2 percent of the general election vote. On paper, he should be untouchable. But this is 2026, and in the West Virginia Senate, nobody is safe.
Harman is a businessman and former member of the House of Delegates from Grant County, where he served from 1981 to 1989. He is a veteran of local politics in a district that sprawls across six counties in the eastern part of the state. Harman is positioned as the more practical Republican, the candidate focused on roads, broadband, and economic development rather than ideological purity.
Then there is Manypenny, whose presence on the Republican ballot is one of the more unusual stories of the cycle. Mike Manypenny is a former Democratic member of the House of Delegates who served from 2009 to 2015. In 2016, he ran for Congress as a Democrat against David McKinley and lost decisively. He has also run for the House of Delegates multiple times as a Democrat, most recently losing to Republican Amy Summers in 2022. Now he is running in a Republican Senate primary.
Party switches happen in West Virginia. The state’s entire political realignment over the past two decades is built on them. But Manypenny’s history is recent enough and his Democratic resume long enough that his presence in this primary could become a factor, either as a vote splitter or as a target for opponents who question the sincerity of the conversion.
Bottom line: Taylor has the title and the general election margin, but titles do not vote in primaries. Harman has local credibility and the pragmatic pitch. Manypenny adds unpredictability. In a three-way race in a six-county district, the math gets complicated fast.
District 15: The Math Race
Berkeley, Hampshire, Morgan Counties Republican primary: Sen. Darren Thorne (i) vs. Ken Reed vs. Robert Wolford
On paper, this looks like a standard three-way primary with an appointed incumbent defending his seat. Underneath the surface, the math tells a different story.
Thorne was appointed to fill the vacancy left by Charles S. Trump IV, who left the Senate after being elected to the Intermediate Court of Appeals. Thorne has never been elected to this seat. He is from Hampshire County.
Reed is a pharmacist and multi-business owner who operates Reed’s Pharmacies across the Eastern Panhandle and co-owns the Canary Grill in Berkeley Springs. He is a former Morgan County Commissioner and a former member of the House of Delegates representing the Berkeley/Morgan 59th District. He also ran for Secretary of State in 2024, losing to Kris Warner in the Republican primary but performing well in the Eastern Panhandle.
A Republican source laid out the district math for the WASP, and it strongly favors Reed. Berkeley County makes up roughly half of District 15. Reed has been elected there. Morgan County accounts for another 25 percent. Reed has been elected there too. The remaining 25 percent is Hampshire County, where Thorne is from, but Wolford is also from Hampshire. They will split that vote.
Reed also carries high name recognition from his 2024 Secretary of State campaign, particularly in the parts of the district where the most voters live.
Bottom line: This is the race where the math may matter more than the message. Reed has been elected in 75 percent of the district’s geography. Thorne has never been elected to the seat, although he served in a smaller House district. Wolford splits the one county where Thorne has a home-field advantage. If the numbers hold, Reed is in a very strong position.
What Part 2 Tells Us
Six races. Six stories. But one pattern runs through all of them.
In every one of these primaries, the incumbent or appointee is defending a record or a position that the challenger faction believes is out of step with what Republican voters actually want. The challengers are not running to the right of the incumbents on social issues. They are running on jobs, competence, and the argument that the Senate has failed to govern.
Whether that argument wins is up to the voters on May 12. But the fact that it is being made in this many districts, by this many credible candidates, with this much coordination behind it, tells you something might be fundamentally shifting in West Virginia Republican politics. 🐝
Next: Part 3 of “The GOP Senate Civil War” covers the sleepers, the specials, and the rest of the board, including the Tarr primary nobody recruited, the Deeds race that might already be over, and the districts where Democrats could steal a seat. Follow the WV WASP on X @wvwasp and at wvwasp.com.