West Virginia isn’t your typical “red state.”

On one hand, West Virginia supported Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by over 40 points in 2016. No Democratic presidential nominee has broken 50% in the state since 1988. The incumbent governor, elected as a Democrat with 49% of the vote to the Republican nominee’s 42%, flipped to the GOP and endorsed Trump just months after inauguration.

On the other hand, until 2014, no Republican had won election to the U.S. Senate in West Virginia since 1956. No Republican has succeeded another Republican as West Virginia Governor since the 1920’s. And even though Donald Trump won the state in 2016, Bernie Sanders won all 55 counties in the Democratic primary. That may not sound impressive given that it was only the primary, but overall, the Democratic primary totaled 242,539 votes to the GOP’s 204,061. With the recent teachers’ strike, it’s clear the progressive populism has a place in West Virginia politics. Yet many West Virginia Democrats, most notably U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, have shied away from the left, instead playing to Trump voters with racist rhetoric, including support for Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall. This raises the question of whether West Virginia Democrats will embrace the progressive direction their party is heading in or continue to try to win as the GOP-lite. For Joe Manchin, it’s clearly the latter. But for Kendra Fershee, there’s no question that it’s the former.

As the Democratic nominee for Congress in West Virginia’s 1st, Kendra Fershee is one of the few openly progressive candidates who will be on the ballot in a red state this November. She will be going up against Republican incumbent David McKinley, who was first elected to Congress in 2010 by a 0.8% margin (or 1,440 votes) but has crushed his Democratic opponents after GOP-controlled redistricting occurred. With an R+19 rating from the Cook Political Report, WV-01 won’t be easy for Kendra Fershee to win. But she’s still hopeful.

A self-proclaimed freedom fighter, Kendra Fershee is running a proudly progressive campaigned focused on fighting the opioid epidemic, getting money out of politics, legalizing medical marijuana, and improving education.

Kendra joined us on the podcast to discuss misconceptions about West Virginia as well as her progressive policy priorities. Listen on iTunes or in your browser below: