Ritchie County, West Virginia is located in the mid-Ohio Valley and has a long history of rich culture and tradition. The county offers a wide variety of activities for residents to enjoy including recreation, shopping, dining, and entertainment. The county is also home to many local parks, hiking trails, and outdoor recreation areas; making it a great place to live and play. Politically speaking, Ritchie County is affiliated with the Republican party with many of the local elections being won by candidates from that party. The county has two representatives on the State House of Delegates who are both Republicans as well as one senator in the West Virginia State Senate. There have been several notable political leaders from Ritchie County over the years such as Ken Hechler who served as Secretary of State from 1985-2001. Overall, politics in Ritchie County remain largely stable but continue to be active in terms of engaging citizens in civic-minded initiatives such as community outreach programs and public forums on important issues.
The political climate in Ritchie County, WV is very conservative.
In Ritchie County, WV 13.7% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 85.2% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.1% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Ritchie county remained overwhelmingly Republican, 85.2% to 13.7%.
Ritchie county voted Republican in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Ritchie County, WV is very conservative.
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West Virginia is very conservative.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Ritchie, West Virginia: R R R R R R
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Ritchie County, WV
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 58 contributions totaling $5,338 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $92 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 41 contributions totaling $26,769 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $653 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)