Democrat Nick Rahall had represented Southern West Virginia in Congress for 38 years. Buildings with his name on them were plastered across the district. Rahall had survived, quite easily, the Republican tidal waves of 1994 and 2010, and in 2012 he even won by 8 points as Mitt Romney was beating Barack Obama by over 30 points. Rahall’s reign came to an end in 2014 when State Senator Evan Jenkins handed Rahall a crushing 11-point defeat. Despite strong anti-Obama sentiment, however, the district remained suspicious of Republicans, and Jenkins had to overcome a nearly 40-point Democratic edge in party registration. We did it with a smart, strategic message progression that tagged Rahall as a loyal agent of President Obama, and turned his longtime incumbency into a severe liability. The result?
“Jenkins scored the GOP’s biggest upset” – ABC News
“The Best Congressional Campaigns of 2014…‘The progression of the TV ads…was the best I’ve seen’” – Roll Call
