Evan Jenkins

In addition, Jenkins's victory, along with those of Alex Mooney and David McKinley, meant that West Virginia had an all-Republican House delegation for the first time since 1923.

Evan Hollin Jenkins (born September 12, 1960) is an American politician and judge.

Jenkins earned his B.S. in education and business administration from the University of Florida in 1983.

He went on to earn his Juris Doctor from Samford University Cumberland School of Law in 1987.

He was the executive director of the West Virginia State Medical Association, and taught business law as an instructor at Marshall University.

He is also the former co-chairman of the Health Care Committee in the West Virginia State Chamber of Commerce.

He formerly served as general counsel of the West Virginia State Chamber of Commerce.

He served in both chambers of the West Virginia Legislature in Charleston over the course of 20 years, having been elected as a member of the House in 1994, and elected to the Senate in 2002.

Jenkins served in both houses of the legislature in Charleston as a member of the Democratic Party, having first been elected as a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1994.

He lost a race for the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia in 2000.

Jenkins was then elected to the West Virginia State Senate in 2002, after defeating Democratic incumbent Marie Redd in the primary election and former State Senator Thomas Scott in the general election.

In 2006, Jenkins once again defeated Redd in the primary election, and Scott in the general election (with 64% of the vote).

In 2010, Jenkins was again re-elected to the West Virginia State Senate, District 5, running unopposed in the general election.

In 2012, it went for Mitt Romney 66-32 percent, making it the second-most Republican district in the nation to be represented by a Democrat.

Jenkins and Rahall had contributed to each other's campaigns in the decade's previous election cycles.

Jenkins ran unopposed in the Republican primary.

He is a Republican, having switched his party affiliation from Democratic in 2013.

Jenkins was a member of the West Virginia Senate from the 5th district, which contains Cabell County and a small portion of Wayne County.

In July 2013, Jenkins announced he was switching to the Republican Party in preparation for a run at West Virginia's 3rd congressional district seat, held by 19-term Democrat Nick Rahall.

On switching parties, Jenkins stated that: "West Virginia is under attack from Barack Obama and a Democratic Party that our parents and grandparents would not recognize."

West Virginia's 3rd district had long been a Democratic stronghold on the congressional level, but had been swept up in the growing Republican tide that had consumed the state since the turn of the century.

He gave up his seat to run in the 2014 congressional election, defeating incumbent Democrat Nick Rahall.

He faced Rahall in the general election in November 2014.

An early poll showed Jenkins with a double-digit lead over Rahall.

The National Right to Life Committee, West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, and West Virginians for Life, all of which had previously supported Rahall, supported Jenkins in 2014, and the West Virginia Coal Association endorsed Jenkins in September 2014.

On October 2, managing editor Kyle Kondik of Sabato's Crystal Ball said the race was a toss-up, calling it "Super close, super expensive and super nasty."

Rahall outspent Jenkins in the election by a two-to-one ratio.

In the general election, Jenkins defeated Rahall, taking 55% of the vote to 45% — the second-largest margin of defeat for a House incumbent in the 2014 cycle.

He served as a U.S. Representative from West Virginia from 2015 to 2018.

As a measure of how Democratic much of this district once was, when Jenkins took office on January 3, 2015, he became the first Republican to represent what is now the 3rd since 1957 (the district was numbered as the 4th before 1993), and the first Republican to represent most of the district's southern portion since 1933 (most of which was the 5th district before it was eliminated in 1973).

Jenkins defeated Democratic candidate Matt Detch in the November 2016 general election with 67.9% of the vote.

Jenkins was a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership.

On May 8, 2017, Jenkins announced his intention to run for the United States Senate seat held by Joe Manchin.

His main competitor for the Republican nomination was state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.

On September 5, 2017, President Trump formally rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

He served as a justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, joining the Court in 2018 and serving as chief justice in 2021.

He resigned from the court on February 4, 2022.

Jenkins was a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2018, losing to West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in the primary election.

Jenkins, a lifelong resident of Huntington, is the son of Dorothy C. Jenkins and the late John E. Jenkins Jr. He attended public schools.

On May 8, 2018, exactly one year after announcing his bid for the Republican nomination, Jenkins lost the primary, coming in second place to Morrisey.