MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — An investigator for the Child Protective Services division of the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, will represent the Republican Party in the race for the House of Delegates 78th District Seat.
Geno Chiarelli, defeated Toni DiChiacchio and Scott Nale in the 2022 Primary Election with a sixty-one vote difference to second place candidate DiChiacchio. Despite the expectations that the Republican nomination for the 78th District was going to be a close race, Chiarelli was confident the vote would swing his way.
“I was very at peace with the amount of effort that I put at this campaign ahead of the voting,” said Chiarelli after the results were revealed. “I have a lot of confidence in what was going to happen and I’m going to sleep easy,” he said.
Chiarelli, was considered to be in a major disadvantage in regards to financial support ahead of the 2022 Primary Election. DiChiacchio, raised over $16,000 for her campaign which included donations from two political action committees (PACs) while Nale opened the campaign with $3,260 in donations in comparison to Chiarelli’s $259 at the start. As the campaign continued, Chiarelli raised $3,769 in donations which he stated was a result of a strong boots to the ground campaign.
“I knew that for every single dollar that I didn’t have, it was going to have to be another step, physically, that I would have to make up,” he said. “It would have to be the doors, it would have to be getting directly in front of a voter,” he said.
Chiarelli did receive a $2,000 donation from former coal mining executive Don Blankenship towards his campaign. Despite the name recognition, the finances did not change very much in the campaign as that donation contributed over half of his campaign’s funding. As this was recognized by Chiarelli, he stated that it prompted the efforts of his campaign to continue all the way up to election day.
“I ran my campaign on the entire premise of ‘you’re tailing behind, you got to push a little but harder,'” he said. “And I kept that mindset through, honestly this morning, I was out waving signs this morning, and now here we are,” he said.
With the narrow margin of victory, it is expected that the vote for the Republican nomination of the 78th District seat of the West Virginia House of Delegates, will be recounted ahead of the 2022 General Election. If Chiarelli holds on to the winning vote, he will face Democrat Jeffrey Budkey who ran unopposed in the 2022 Primary Election. Much like in his primary, Chiarelli expects the same effort will be needed for him to win in November.
“Cause I saw those dollar signs, I saw the endorsements, I saw the Facebook ads, I saw the sponsors from other places, and I knew I was not having the same financial backing as my opponent,” said Chiarelli. “But it did not deter me from putting in the amount of work that I had to do,” he said.