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U.S. Sen. Capito, Anderson get out the vote ahead of Election Day

CHARLESTON - Republican U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and her Democratic opponent, Rachel Fetty Anderson, were working to get their messages out to undecided voters in the final hours before the polls opened for today's Election Day midterms.

Capito, R-W.Va., joined Republican candidates for state legislative seats and local offices in Kanawha County Monday evening for a rally at Elk City Pizza on Charleston's West Side.

“The most important thing is to get out vote,” Capito said to a packed room. “We need, as Republicans, good solid conservatives to make sure that we get a good lineup at the statehouse, in our county commissions, in our city councils, and, of course, in the United States Senate.”

Capito is seeking her third six-year term in the Senate after a congressional career spanning nearly 26 years. She was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2001. In 2015, she succeeded former Democratic U.S. senator Jay Rockefeller and was re-elected in 2020.

“I think I’ve served with integrity and trust, and I think that’s important this day and age,” Capito said following Monday’s rally. “People value that. I want people to know that the heart that I had when I started is the same heart I have now in terms of wanting to solve problems and make things better.”

Since 2025, Capito has steadily risen the ranks of Senate GOP leadership, beginning the year as the 18th chairperson of the Republican Policy Committee and fourth ranking member in the Senate Republican majority. She chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Capito also serves as chairwoman of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee.

Capito was endorsed in the May Republican primary by President Donald Trump and she easily won the GOP nomination in the first Republican primary closed to unaffiliated voters since the mid-1980s. But in the general election, Capito has promoted her ability to work independently and across party lines, as well as her constituent outreach to help solve problems West Virginians face.

“I’m very easily accessible,” Capito said. “I listen. I go to things all over the state. My team is out there all the time telling me the impacts of legislation, but also how we can help people, whether it’s Corridor H or the WVU dental school or nursing at Concord or a gas line or a water line. Things that in a more personal way, that we can help. I take all of these things extremely, seriously and I work hard. My door is always open.”

Speaking by phone Monday morning, Anderson said she was hitting the road for Nicholas County to continue door-knocking efforts in the southern half of West Virginia. She said she has focused on trying to get in front of real West Virginians and not turning anyone away, pointing to the past arrest of constituents protesting at Capito's Charleston offices last year.

"I’m feeling pretty optimistic," Anderson said. "I think that we have made some real strides in educating the public about their right to be represented in a way that is open and transparent and gives them access to the candidate or the elected official without a lot of barriers or without arresting them."

Anderson is an attorney and a former Morgantown City Council member who still sits on the Morgantown Civilian Police Review and Advisory Board. Her legal practice has involved representing children, victims of domestic violence, students with special needs, parents in custody cases and recipients of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

Anderson's campaign has focused on painting Capito has someone disconnected from the average working-class voter in the state and someone who entirely supported by special interests and advocates for foreign governments, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

"We believe that elected representatives should be paid only by our tax dollars, so that we can be ensured that they only have our interests at heart," Anderson said. "So much of the legislation that is passed is really supported by corporate donors and industry when the people of West Virginia ... really need our representatives to be available to us on the ground, meeting with voters, meeting with constituents on a regular basis, and not focusing so much of their attention, time and effort on their donor class."

With national political pundits predicting a blue wave of Democratic candidates being election to congressional and statewide races across the nation, Anderson is hoping voters will consider her campaign as well as Democratic candidates up and down the ballot in West Virginia, who she believes will be more accessible to constituents and prioritize local issues, like clean water, government surveillance, and community oversight.

"They need to really elect their neighbors. That’s, I think, the most important message… from this election," Anderson said. "A campaign that is a grassroots campaign needs the roots. You need the grass. You got to have folks that are planted everywhere in these communities to spread the word that there’s an alternative.”

"Move more federal representatives … into positions where we can really speak up for the people of West Virginia, as opposed to having folks speak down to us and tell us what’s good for us," Anderson continued. "We want to tell them; we want to tell the nation this is what we need. ... we just need people who live here to do that."