Ed Rabel, an independent candidate for Congress in the second Congressional district of West Virginia, is polling ten percent, according to a recent Tarrance Group telephone survey.
The poll shows the Republican Alex Mooney polling 39 percent, the Democrat Nick Casey polling 29 percent, Rabel at 10 percent, the Libertarian Davy Jones at 3 percent, with 19 percent undecided.
The poll was commissioned by the Mooney campaign and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
Rabel, a native of West Virginia, is a former CBS News correspondent. Rabel is calling for a moratorium on mountaintop removal and hydraulic fracturing because of the threats they pose to the people of state. (Rabel’s web site is rabelforcongress.com)
“Both Mooney and Casey side with the polluting corporations over the people of the West Virginia,” Rabel said. “Mooney and Casey are in the pockets of coal, chemical and natural gas corporations. People are looking for an independent voice to push back against the corporate Democrats and the Republicans.”
For the past six weeks, Rabel’s campaign workers have been gathering petitions around the district.
They have collected more than 80 percent of the signatures they need to put Rabel on the ballot.
“People are looking for an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans, who they believe, and I believe, have been corrupted by big corporate money,” Rabel said. “I will be on the ballot in November to provide that alternative. That’s what the 10 percent in this poll reflects – a disgust with West Virginia’s two corporate parties.”