“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” – Sun Tzu
Background
With the West Virginia primary elections just two weeks away, State Navigate went into the field in three State Senate districts with Republican primaries, one of which has a double-barrel election with both a regular and a special Republican primary. Each race is a key battle between the two factions duking it out in the Senate, and is assured to elect a Republican in the November general election, according to the State Navigate forecast.
Senate District 2: Incumbent Republican Charles Clements declined to seek re-election in Senate District 2, which is located in the northwestern part of West Virginia, containing all of Doddridge, Tyler, and Wetzel counties, plus portions of Marion, Marshall, and Monongalia counties. Clements votes much more closely with Tom Takubo than Senate President Randy Smith, so it’s a “flip” target for the arch-conservative wing of the Senate. The open race is a two-person contest between National Guard veteran Toby Heaney of Marion County, who was recruited by Senator Chris Rose and previously twice ran for the Republican nomination in HD-76 in 2022 and 2024 but narrowly lost each time, and attorney Robert Dobkin of Marshall County.
Republicans on both sides of the Civil War haven’t been optimistic about Heaney’s chances compared to their candidates in other races across the state: privately, both camps say Heaney’s run a poor campaign, whereas Dobkin’s run a strong one. Dobkin also hails from a slightly larger portion of the district: Marion County comprises ~17% of the primary electorate here, while Marshall County comprises ~21%. Neither campaign has “gone negative” so far, meaning they haven’t attacked one another in campaign advertisements. One major asset for Heaney, despite conventional wisdom are his large out-of-state backers: Americans for Prosperity and Make Liberty Win are supporting his campaign.
Senate District 3: Located in the Parkersburg area of Wood, Pleasants, Ritchie, and Wirt counties, Senate District 3 is one of the double-barrel districts this year. Out of each of these three districts, this one has attracted the most spending up and down the ballot during this year’s primary season. In the regular election, freshman incumbent Mike Azinger, a January 6th attendee and one of the most conservative members of the West Virginia Senate, faces a challenge from Delegate Bob Fehrenbacher, both of whom hail from Vienna in Wood County. In the special election, appointed incumbent Trent Barnhart of Pleasants County faces a challenger from former Delegate Jason Harshbarger of Ritchie County.
Fehrenbacher, like many candidates running against Randy Smith’s slate, has made job creation a cornerstone of his campaign. Azinger has, in turn, run a very ideological campaign, labeling Fehrenbacher as a “woke RINO.” Ferenbacher has been heavily outspent during the election, including being at a 2:1 disadvantage on TV. Takubo & co. hoped that by recruiting Fehrenbacher, they’d have a chance to “flip” this seat into their column, but money is a strong indicator more often than not on who wins primaries, so even before our poll went into the field, both sides of the aisle knew that Fehrenbacher is an underdog.
The special election hasn’t attracted as much spending and attention as the regular one, but it’s still part of the Civil War: Barnhart is supported by Smith and the Governor, while their detractors back Harshbarger. Barnhart has two big advantages in this primary: he has been uncontested on TV, which is a kingmaker in primaries everywhere, and he hails from Pleasants County, a county that’s a sort of “little brother” to Wood County as it hugs along the Ohio River.
Senate District 8: The City of Charleston is one of the few blue dots in West Virginia, and as such was placed into a gerrymandered district. Senate District 8 includes red rural swaths north of the city, including the entirety of Roane and Clay counties, as well as portions of Putnam, Kanawha, and Jackson counties. All three candidates hail from Kanawha County, but each from a different part: appointed incumbent Kevan Bartlett (who was also appointed to a previous House of Delegates and lost his first Republican primary) is from Sissonville, in the small rural segment of the county; physician Steven Carder Eshenaur is from Dunbar (a Charleston suburb); and County Commissioner Lance Wheeler is from Charleston City.
While not the most expensive contest of this set of polls in spending totals by both factions, it is perhaps the most interesting. This is the only contest in which Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which supported Governor Morrisey’s 2024 bid, is opposing the Governor. Morrisey has endorsed Bartlett, while AFP is backing Wheeler. On the Tom Takubo side (detractors of Randy Smith), Eshenaur has also been running a formidable campaign, creating a unique three-way race. The split between AFP and the Governor gives the Takubo/anti-Smith faction of the Civil War a strong opportunity to emerge victorious, so long as AFP and the Governor fail to consolidate behind a candidate. Given how close we are to the primary, it’d be strange to see either the Governor or AFP switch horses. While Randy Smith hasn’t endorsed a candidate here, he is firmly against Eshenaur, as his team has just sent out mailers attacking him.
Maps of Respondents
As is standard with State Navigate polls since our first West Virginia poll, we’ve created a map of raw responses in each district. 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!
Methodology, Toplines & Crosstabs Links
These surveys were fielded from April 27-29, 2026 among registered likely Republican primary voters in West Virginia’s 2nd, 3rd, and 8th State Senate Districts. The sample sizes in each seat are 381 in SD-2, 565 in SD-3, and 395 in SD-8. 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 previous election results. The margins of error in each poll are 5.0% in SD-2, 4.1% in SD-3, and 4.9% in SD-8, each with a 95% confidence interval. The survey was designed and conducted by State Navigate. These surveys were not sponsored by any party, candidate, or candidate’s committee.
SD-2: Poll Toplines & Synopsis (NEW!) | Crosstabs
SD-3 (Regular): Poll Toplines & Synopsis (NEW!) | Crosstabs
SD-3 (Special): Poll Toplines & Synopsis (NEW!) | Crosstabs
