West Virginians weigh in on idea of moving state's primary to earlier in the year

Trump is only about 241 delegates away from winning the Republican nomination and needs fewer than half of the remaining votes. His closest competitor — Ted Cruz — would need more votes than are remaining to win his party’s bid.

Clinton’s path to the nomination is a little less clear given the volatile nature of the super delegates within the Democratic Party. She only has about 300 more delegates than the roughly 1,357 delegates earned by Bernie Sanders, her closest competitor. Clinton, though, appears to have the support of about 520 super delegates, putting her only about 218 votes shy of the number required to earn the nomination.

Given the state’s relatively few delegates — 29 Republican and 37 Democrat — and the lateness of the state’s race, many voters have lost their enthusiasm for the primary process.

“I think it would be nice if it was a little earlier in the year,” said Jordan Gwinn of Clarksburg.

He wanted to vote for Dr. Ben Carson, but now won’t have the chance.

Gwinn’s wife, Andrea, doesn’t think the timing of the state’s primary is all that important.

“It doesn’t matter too much anyway when we vote,” Andrea Gwinn said. “We don’t have many delegates.”

Amanda Burroughs of Clarksburg, a Trump supporter, is glad her candidate is winning, but she’s still not happy with the process.

“I think we should have an earlier vote,” Burroughs said.

She surprised she’s even participating in the voting process.

“I never vote in the primaries,” Burroughs said. “The delegates just vote for whoever they want to.”

Miranda Roe, also of Clarksburg, is another Trump supporter, but she wants the state’s primary to remain in May.

“It’s good because it makes West Virginia matter and the politicians notice us,” Roe said. “I think having it then makes the politicians come here.”

If the state’s primary occurred at the same time as those in other states, she believes candidates would skip over West Virginia for the bigger primaries.

Clarksburg’s Dustin Rodriguez is so frustrated with the political process that he’s not sure what he will do for next week’s election.

“At this point, I don’t know,” Rodriguez said. “I would like Bernie to win, but I don’t think there’s a chance.”

He’s upset that Trump and Clinton are the likely options, but doesn’t think changing the date of West Virginia’s primary could have helped his candidate find greater success. Rodriguez doesn’t think many of Sanders’ supporters will support Clinton in the general election.

“I’m registered Independent, so a lot of the time, I vote for the Libertarian candidate anyway,” Rodriguez said.

Laura Manning, of Loudoun (County), Virginia, has completely lost interest in this year’s election, mostly because of Trump and Clinton.

“I think we’re out of luck either way,” Manning said. “I just don’t think either one has the political experience to do any good.”

Jenenessa Johnson of Kingwood would like the state’s primary to be moved to sometime in either January or February.

“I don’t think we make much of a difference the way it is,” Johnson said.

But even if the primary were sooner, Johnson said she’s still not sure how she would vote. She’s been a lifelong Democrat, but she voted Republican in the last election.

“I used to like Hillary, but now I’m leaning more toward Donald Trump,” Johnson said. “This mining and everything has me scared to vote for her. My whole family is in mining, so it’s kind of hard.”