GOP Rep. Shelley Moore Capito and Democratic Secretary of State Natalie Tennant jockeyed for position during a Tuesday debate for West Virginia’s open Senate seat.
Capito, who’s heavily favored in most polls, tried to tie Tennant to the policies of President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Tennant, meanwhile, painted her opponent as too close to financial interests and Wall Street.
Obama administration regulations played a prominent role during the debate, whether on Obamacare or a proposal to limit carbon emissions from power plants.
“This race is about West Virginia’s future. A future whether we’re going to continue to have Washington pick winners and losers — of which we’re losers — or are we going to select a United States senator who is going to stand up and fight for us?” Capito said during the debate, the only scheduled televised one of the race.
On Obamacare, both agreed pre-existing conditions shouldn’t be penalized. Capito said other parts of the law should be scrapped, while Tennant cited an experience with her daughter’s heart surgery that she said showed the law is working.
Both opposed the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to slash power sector emissions, which they said would harm West Virginia’s coal mining industry. But Tennant touted her endorsement from the United Mine Workers Association union and slammed Capito’s opposition to extending federal unemployment benefits, saying it underscored Capito’s favoring business over miners.
“The coal miners know and are behind me in this race,” Tennant said.
Capito countered that “every single mining job” that’s lost is attributable to policies under Reid and Obama, and that electing Tennant would buoy those policies. But that statement belies a decades-long downward trend in West Virginia coal production, a product largely of most of the economical coal seams already being mined and competition from cheap, cleaner burning natural gas.
Capito gave a mixed answer on whether she’d support a federal minimum wage increase, which Tennant supports. The state already has approved changes to phase in a minimum wage increase, and Capito said she’d consider it — but she qualified the statement with warnings that a higher minimum wage could cost jobs.
“I don’t think we’re in an economy that can afford to lose half a million jobs,” Capito said, adding though that she “would look favorably upon raising the minimum wage.”
On the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Tennant said she was unwilling to put “boots on the ground” because she felt the U.S. hadn’t yet exhausted all options. Capito defended her vote to arm Syrian rebels, but noted the U.S. shouldn’t go it alone in the region.
“I find it frightening in terms of what could happen on our homeland,” Capito said of Islamic State.
