FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 8, 2025
Contact: info@wvgop.org
Charleston, WV — The West Virginia Republican Party welcomes Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to the Mountain State and encourages him to listen to the very communities that have been impacted by his policies.
“We hope that Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders enjoys his visit to West Virginia, a state that overwhelmingly supports the Make America Great Again agenda of President Donald J. Trump,” said Chairman Josh Holstein. “The West Virginia Republican Party recognizes that Bernie Sanders represents everything that the vast majority of West Virginians stand against.”
A self-avowed socialist and failed presidential candidate, Senator Sanders has spent years attacking fossil fuels, and working to dismantle the coal industry that has long powered West Virginia’s economy. Alongside ideological allies like Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Sanders pushed for extreme climate policies that destroyed jobs, shuttered coal plants, and crippled our rural communities. His actions have real, lasting consequences that are felt daily across the areas he’s currently touring.
“It is extremely rich that Senator Sanders will visit the southern coalfields of our state – people whose jobs he called on ending and that were permanently lost and communities who are still reeling from the devastation he helped inflict during the Obama and Biden administrations.
His long record of hostility toward the industries that built this state is well known. I’m hopeful that he will use his time in our state as an opportunity to hear firsthand how his anti-energy, anti-Blue Collar Worker agenda has harmed our people,” said Holstein. “
Sanders’ out-of-touch ideology doesn’t stop at energy policy. He has consistently opposed the values that define West Virginia. From advocating for sweeping gun control measures that target law-abiding citizens, to voting against securing our borders, no tax on tips, overtime, and social security, Bernie Sanders has stood in the way of West Virginia values at every turn.
While President Donald J. Trump works to bring jobs back to America, secure our borders, unleash energy independence, and put working families first, Bernie Sanders is standing in the way, voting against every common-sense reform that would benefit the working-class.
Holstein said, “For decades, Democrats in West Virginia attempted to distance themselves from the far-left of their party. Today, by celebrating Bernie Sanders, they are no longer hiding the fact that they are grossly out of touch with the average West Virginian.”
While the West Virginia Democrats host Champagne Socialist Bernie Sanders, West Virginia Republican leaders will continue to defend our values and fight for the future of our state.
