Evan Hansen
Evan Hansen is the incumbent Democratic candidate in House of Delegates District 79. He is originally from Newark, New Jersey, but has lived in Morgantown since 1997. Hansen is a father, scientist and small business owner. He founded a company that provides jobs for West Virginians and attracts working professionals to Morgantown. Hansen has served in the House of Delegates since 2018, where he represented Downtown Morgantown and the neighborhoods of First Ward, South Park, Greenmont, South Hills, Sabraton, Jerome Park and Woodburn. Hansen’s legislative priorities include energy, electric rates and utility projects, local governance and data centers, clean water and environmental protection, legislative transparency and rules.
Campaign site
“We need to have an in-depth, comprehensive approach to examine all possible solutions. This is not a partisan issue. All delegates and senators in the district, regardless of party, will be invited to join this new legislative caucus.”
(West Virginia Legislature News Release (wvlegislature.gov))Paige Reiring
Mountain Party
Paige Reiring is a member of the Mountain Party and is running for House of Delegates District 79, against incumbent Democrat Evan Hansen. This district serves Downtown Morgantown, First Ward, Greenmont, Jerome Park, Sabraton, South Park and Woodburn. She grew up as the only child of a single mother. Reiring graduated from Ohio State University. According to her website, she “is fighting for a fair economy in West Virginia that truly protects life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – not a crooked economy built on environmental destruction, exploitation of the poor, and unchecked corporate welfare.” If elected to the House of Delegates, she says she would support bills that ban Flock Safety and other AI-powered surveillance, instate a moratorium on hyperscale data centers and create public utility companies.
· Candidate campaign website & Ballotpedia (secondary source)
Campaign site
“In 2016, I graduated from the Ohio State University with a Bachelor's in English, having pivoted after a year of International Studies. I have spent the bulk of my life, like many Americans, working. I've been a barista, a gas station attendant, a research writer, a customer incidents processor - all kinds of jobs. And they are part of why I'm running today - because I saw how, again and again, the labor of the working class was constantly extracted, exploited and abused for the profit of big business without any consequence.”
(Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey) “We should instate a moratorium on them until we know exactly what they're going to be used for. Even then, they cannot be built without the full support of the people who live there, who will be affected by them, who will have to live near them and feel the full effects of these data centers for as long as they live.”
(Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey) “Utility rates are a big one. I've been working with the West Virginia Utility Impact Project to collect testimonies from over 10,000 people across West Virginia regarding the impact of rising utility rates on their lives. In 10 years, electric rates have increase 50%, and they're only going higher as data centers suck up more from our power grids. AEP, Hope Gas and FirstEnergy can no longer hold us hostage. It's time to take the power away from these companies and put it in the hands of public organizations that are operated by people who actually live here and are democratically elected.”
(Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey)