West Virginia Senate Election

Democratic incumbent: Jay Rockefeller

Republican candidate: Jay Wolfe

Rockefeller, 71, has been a senator since 1985. He was governor from 1977 to 1985. Before that, he was a state legislator and West Virginia's secretary of state. His great-grandfather Nelson Aldrich was a representative and senator from Rhode Island. His uncle Nelson Rockefeller, was governor of New York and vice president of the United States. Another uncle, Winthrop Rockefeller, was governor of Arkansas. His father-in-law, Charles Percy, was a senator from Illinois. As to other family connections, do you really need to ask?

Wolfe, 53, was a state senator from 1987 to 1990. He was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1988 and 2002.

Real Clear Politics reports a poll showing a 28-point Rockefeller lead.

As I noted here, West Virginia has begun to vote Republican in presidential elections. Perhaps that party's only hope for a U.S. Senate victory in that state is to wait for the passage of time. The 71-year-old Rockefeller is the spring chicken of the Senate delegation, next to his 90-year-old senior colleague, fellow Democrat Robert Byrd.

At the end of the current Congress, it will have been 50 years since a Republican represented West Virginia in the Senate.