United States House of Representatives elections in West Virginia, 2012

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	2012 U.S. Senate Elections

The 2012 U.S. House of Representatives elections in West Virginia took place on November 6, 2012. Voters elected three candidates to serve in the U.S. House, one from each of the state's three congressional districts.

Candidate Filing Deadline	Primary Election	General Election
January 28, 2012	May 8, 2012	November 6, 2012

Primary: West Virginia has a mostly closed primary system, in which the selection of a party's candidates in an election is limited to registered party members, although unaffiliated voters may pick which party's primary to vote in.

Voter registration: Voters had to register to vote in the primary by April 17. For the general election, the voter registration deadline was October 16.^[1]

See also: West Virginia elections, 2012

According to the New York Times race ratings in October 2012, one of the three districts was considered to be in play, District 3.^[2]

The Center for Voting and Democracy (Fairvote) projected that Republicans would win one seat. It did not make a projection for the remaining two districts.^[3]

Primary competitiveness

See also: National contested primary average during the 2012 U.S. congressional elections

West Virginia tied with Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, and Delaware for having the 22nd most competitive congressional primaries in 2012, with 50% of major party primaries having been contested (3 out of 6). The national average was 54.31%.

Three U.S. House incumbents sought re-election in West Virginia in 2012. 1 of those 3 (33.33%) faced a primary challenger. Nationwide, 200 out of the 386 incumbents seeking re-election faced a primary challenger (51.81%).

Partisan breakdown

Heading into the November 6 election, the Republican Party held two of the three Congressional seats from West Virginia.

Members of the U.S. House from West Virginia -- Partisan Breakdown
Party		As of November 2012	After the 2012 Election
	Democratic Party	1	1
	Republican Party	2	2
Total		3	3

Incumbents

Heading into the 2012 election, the incumbents for the three congressional districts were:

Name	Party	District
David McKinley	Republican	1
Nick Rahall	Democratic	3
Shelley Moore Capito	Republican	2

Margin of victory for winners

There were a total of 3 seats up for election in 2012 in West Virginia. The following table shows the margin of victory for each district winner, which is calculated by examining the percentage difference between the top-two vote getters. If the race was uncontested, the margin of victory is listed as 100%.

District	Winner	Margin of Victory	Total Vote	Top Opponent
West Virginia, District 1	David McKinley	24.6%	194,863	Sue Thorn
West Virginia, District 2	Shelley Moore Capito	39.6%	226,165	Howard Swint
West Virginia, District 3	Nick Rahall	7.1%	191,518	Rick Snuffer

Impact of redistricting

See also: Redistricting in West Virginia

A three-judge panel ruled West Virginia's redistricting plan unconstitutional for its unequal distribution of population among its three congressional districts. The court gave the West Virginia Legislature until January 17, 2012, to come up with a new map.^[4]

General election candidates

District	General Election Candidates	Incumbent	2012 Winner	Partisan Switch?
1st	Sue Thorn David McKinley	David McKinley	David McKinley	No
2nd	Howard Swint Shelley Moore Capito	Shelley Moore Capito	Shelley Moore Capito	No
3rd	Nick Rahall Rick Snuffer	Nick Rahall	Nick Rahall	No

Candidates

Note: Election results were added on election night as races were called. Vote totals were added after official election results had been certified. Click here for more information about Ballotpedia's election coverage plan. Please contact us about errors in this list.