Gap proves too much for Maloney to overcome

MORGANTOWN Republican Bill Maloney, unknown to West Virginiansjust over seven months ago, came close to upsetting a long-timeDemocratic power player but not close enough. Maloney, a Morgantownbusinessman who dumped perhaps a few million dollars of his own intothe campaign, came within 3 percentage points of upsettingDemocratic acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin in Tuesdays specialgubernatorial election. Maloney received 142,889 votes to Tomblins150,732, according to The Associated Press. When we got in thisrace, our campaign team could have fit into a phone booth, Maloneytold about 300 supporters at the Waterfront Place Hotel inMorgantown. The loss came despite an aggressive and consistentlynegative campaign that tried to paint Tomblin as an insider who usedhis office for personal gain. There was also a last-minute effort bythe Republican Governors Association to boost Maloneys chances bytrying to tie Tomblin to deeply unpopular President Barack Obama.The group ran ads in the expensive D.C. media market, an attempt tosway conservative Eastern Panhandle voters. But that strategy didntwork in the 2010 U.S. Senate race, which Democrat Joe Manchin easilywon. And it didnt work Tuesday. Still, some polls showed Maloneygaining on Tomblin since the May 14 primary, a trend Republicanshoped would sweep him to victory. But if that was Maloneys truetrajectory, he ran out of runway in a compressed election cycle.Tomblin will be sworn in by Nov. 15 and will serve until onlyJanuary 2013, filling the unexpired term of Manchin. Tomblin hasbeen temporarily filling in for Manchin since last year by virtue ofbeing the Senate president. Maloney lost or failed to win by a largeenough margin in several key counties. Unofficial vote counts postedonline by the Secretary of States Office indicated he lost CabellCounty, where both he and Tomblin campaigned hard in the final daysof the race. Maloney also narrowly won Jefferson County in theEastern Panhandle although he did better in the other two countiesthere, Berkeley and Morgan. He lost Raleigh County, a southerncounty he hoped to win. Maloney lost Kanawha County by less than 600votes, 17,654 votes to Tomblins 18,231. Tomblin, a longtime LoganCounty senator, crushed Maloney in Logan, with 6,701 votes toMaloneys 561. Maloney won his own home county, Monongalia, but notby that wide a margin. He received 7,931 votes there as compared toTomblins 5,523. The unofficial counts show Maloney winning 26counties and Tomblin winning 29. Turnout across the state wasunexpectedly high at 25 percent, according to Secretary of StateNatalie Tennants office. A low turnout could have given more sway tosmaller factions, like energized conservatives. The Democratic Partyhas a huge registration advantage in West Virginia. In the daysbefore the election, Democrats said they would surely win if onlytheir people showed up. Tomblin had other built-in advantages: afour-decade veteran of the Legislature, he received more than 30endorsements from interest groups as diverse as the Chamber ofCommerce and the AFL-CIO, as well as newspapers across the state.Maloney received just a handful of endorsements. All along the way,the insiders were lined up against us, but that never mattered,because I wasnt running for them, I was running for you, Maloneytold his supporters. But Republicans also have had notoriously poorground game and get-out-the-vote efforts in West Virginia.Ironically, Tomblin may have been helped over the top by unions, thevery bloc of Democratic voters that opposed him so strongly in theDemocratic Primary. Their favored candidate had been House SpeakerRick Thompson, D-Wayne. GOP Chairman Mike Stuart said theRepublicans had conceded Tuesday night but not surrendered. They arelooking to the 2012 elections. Stuart said Maloneys was a remarkablestory of a candidate who started at 3 percent name ID. Maloney, aformer mine shaft driller, decided to run for office at the lastminute in February. He came out of nowhere using adept campaigningand negative advertising to shock Betty Ireland in the May 14primary with a decisive win in a crowded field. Ireland, the formersecretary of state, was thought to be a shoe-in for her partysnomination.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Republican gubernatorial candidate BillMaloney hugs his wife, Sharon, after conceding the election toTomblin at the Waterfront Hotel in Morgantown.

Contact writer Ry Rivard at ry. rivard@dailymail.com or 304-348-1796.