With five weeks to go until the primary, your guess for who will come out on top in the hotly-contested three-way primary in WV SD-14 is as good as ours.
Freshman incumbent Jay Taylor, the President pro Tempore of the Senate, has drawn two primary opponents this year. One is from his own home in Taylor County, Mike Manypenny, and the other was recruited from Tom Takubo’s wing of the chamber, former Delegate Marc Harman. The three candidates are running to represent WV SD-14, a vastly rural district containing all of Hardy, Mineral, Grant, Tucker, and Preston Counties, as well as part of Taylor County.
In 2022, Jay Taylor won the luck of the draw in a crowded five-way primary for the then-open race for the Republican nomination, garnering just 35.6% of the vote. Taylor may be the incumbent now, but he faces the disadvantage of hailing from the district’s smallest county, located in the westernmost part of the district: in the 2022 GOP primary, Taylor County made up just 7% of the electorate, and in the 2024 Republican primary, it made up 8%.
Harman, meanwhile, hails from the eastern part of the district in the larger Grant County, which made up 14% of the 2022 Republican primary electorate and 17% in 2024. Harman served in the House of Delegates from 1981 to 1989, representing the entirety of both Grant and Mineral counties.
On March 21st and 22nd, State Navigate surveyed 223 likely voters (with 299 raw responses) in the upcoming Republican primary, which will ultimately decide who will represent this reliably Republican district. Unlike our poll in the Northern Panhandle, there’s no clear frontrunner here.
About State Navigate & Our Polling Team
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Topline Results
Our poll shows that a vast majority of voters in the upcoming primary are undecided. 59% of respondents are firmly undecided in the upcoming election, indicating that this is anyone’s race to win or lose.
Candidate Support Levels: Perhaps because Jay Taylor hails from the smallest portion of the district and garnered only 35% of the vote in the 2022 Republican primary, he clearly lacks an incumbency advantage: our poll shows only 15% of likely voters leaning toward Senator Taylor.
Even more worrisome for his re-election odds is that his top primary challenger, Marc Harman, is virtually tied with him at 18%, despite Harman not yet placing any ad buys in the district. Harman hasn’t been an elected official in nearly 40 years, and his political involvement in state politics has been limited to lobbying in Charleston.
Top Issues: The order of top issues amongst likely voters in this district is similar to our findings in our Northern Panhandle poll. The top two issues in this race that will impact voters’ primary vote are supporting President Trump (43%) and inflation/cost of living (42%). The next tier of importance are the issues of immigration and securing the border (38%), Social Security and Medicare (32%), and beating the Democrats in November (32%). Jobs and the economy sit at 25%, and health care sits at 20%. The least important issues are, again, crime and public safety (13%) and “fighting transgenderism” (13%). 9% of voters selected “something else” in their top three issues.
Morrisey Endorsement: Governor Morrisey is from the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, so his performance in the 2024 Republican primary for Governor was better here than in the Northern Panhandle. Despite this, the importance of an endorsement from the Governor is only slightly higher than in our earlier poll of SD-1: 36% of likely voters said an endorsement from the Governor in the Republican primary would make them more likely to vote for the Morrisey-backed candidate, and 10% would be less likely. 55% said it would not impact their vote. By comparison, in SD-1, 33% said a Morrissey endorsement would make them more likely to vote for a candidate, and 10% said it would make them less likely to support that candidate. 56% said it wouldn’t impact their vote.
Key Findings
Demographics: Similar to the Northern Panhandle, a majority of Republican primary voters here are over 65, and virtually all are white. This is generally expected; in 2024, 46% of the voters in this district were over the age of 65, and according to the U.S. Census Bureau, over 95% of district residents are white.
Ideology: As expected among a Republican primary electorate, the vast majority of primary voters in SD-14 consider themselves to be conservative, with 35% identifying as very conservative, 34% identifying as conservative, and 4% identifying as slightly conservative. Among very conservative voters, Harman is ahead of Taylor by 19 points (31% to 12%), while Taylor leads among conservative voters by 7% (18% to 11%).
Undecideds: The biggest battleground in the district is Preston County, which makes up 35% of the primary electorate. 71% of likely voters are undecided, making it imperative for the candidates to campaign in this area.
Maps of Respondents
Brand new to State Navigate polling, this is our first interactive of raw respondents. Coming to future selected polls, raw and unweighted responses will be mapped live as we go into the field. Note that the dots are randomly located within a respondent’s precinct and do not reflect actual respondent locations therein. Click on the map to isolate response types!
Team Notes & Analysis
Most of Harman’s supporters are from his home of Grant County. Taylor has firm support in his home of Taylor County, but is having potential votes siphoned off by fellow Taylor County resident Mike Manypenny. “Hometown heroes” are consistent themes in Republican primaries in West Virginia, and this race is no exception. Of note, the sample size for individual counties is quite small (e.g. 36 likely voters in Grant), but regardless, it should be expected that Harman will carry his home county.
Districtwide, much of Harman’s lead appears to be driven by the staunchest Republicans. We noted above that Harman is doing significantly better with “very conservative” voters than those who identify as just “conservative,” but it goes deeper than that. While there’s relatively little difference between how the candidates did among respondents who said they were more supportive of Trump than the Republican Party and vice versa, among respondents who said that supporting the president was among their top three priorities, Harman is ahead by 9 points (23% to 14%), with Manypenny trailing at 5%. Among those that prioritize beating Democrats, however, the top two candidates are tied at 17% each. Moreover, Manypenny is doing much better with this group of voters, notching 11% with those that want to win in November.
We also see some differences in vote intentions by age; Taylor leads among voters under the age of 65, earning 19% support, while Harman has 11% and Manypenny trails at 7%. Among voters 65 and up, though, Harman is ahead of Taylor, 24% to 12%, with Manypenny at 8%. In 2024, Republican primary voters in the district were split about half and half between voters under 65 and those 65 and over.
In addition, there’s a divide among men and women in this race: among men, Taylor and Harman are virtually tied, with Taylor at 20% and Harman at 18%. Among women, Harman leads Taylor 18% to 11%, but women are also more likely than men to say they are undecided (64% for women vs. 53% for men).
Methodology & Toplines
This survey was fielded from March 21-22, 2026, among 223 registered likely Republican primary voters in West Virginia’s 1st State Senate District. Respondents were chosen from a voter file provided by i360. Text messages containing a link to an online survey designed by the State Navigate Polling Team and hosted on the SurveyMonkey platform were sent to respondents by AllianceForge. The survey was weighted by age, race, gender, education, and county, with benchmarks derived from the voter file and data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. The margin of error is 7.4% for a 95% confidence interval. The survey was designed and conducted by State Navigate. This survey was not sponsored by any party, candidate, or candidate’s committee.
