We are 15 days away from Election Day in West Virginia. Early voting begins Wednesday and — excluding Sundays — will continue until Saturday, Nov. 5. Expect to be bombarded with advertisements, billboards, and sign-wavers. Maybe even an October surprise.

It doesn’t appear like there was a rush of last-minute new voter registrations or party changes since the voter registration deadline for this election closed last Tuesday.

There are 450,278 registered Republicans in West Virginia, according to the Secretary of State’s office, which is virtually unchanged from the 39.2% Republican voter registration number from the end of September. Same goes for the Democratic Party with an updated registration of 379,886, or 33.1% of voters.

We will see what that means for voter turnout once the results of the midterm elections are finalized later in November, but that tells me to expect a lower turnout. Don’t expect to see the record-breaking turnout of the 2018 elections, which was nearly 48% of the 1.25 million registered voters in the state at that time.

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I just don’t see much enthusiasm going into these elections, and why should there be? The biggest races on the ballot are for our two congressional districts. In the southern 1st Congressional District race, Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., raised more than $252,000 between July and September and has more than $268,000 in cash on hand. Her Democratic opponent, Mr. Lacy Watson, still has filed no reports with the Federal Election Commission, telling me he hasn’t raised much of anything.

In the northern 2nd Congressional District race, Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., raised more than $268,000 for the same quarter and has more than $724,000 in cash on hand for the last two weeks of the race. Mooney’s Democratic opponent, Barry Wendell, has done better than Watson at fundraising, but that’s a low bar. For the quarter, Wendell raised $14,802 but has barely $9,500 in cash on hand.

Of course, a candidate can win an election with fewer campaign donations than their opponent. But they can’t win an election with barely raising any money, at least when it comes to a congressional race. Campaign signs, mailers, billboards, events, broadcast and print ads, even the candy one throws in parades, all cost money. Whether you self-fund, bring in large-dollar donations from political action committees or a bunch of small-dollar donations, money is a must.

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I have a hard time handicapping House of Delegates races, especially now that all 100 races are for single-member House districts. I suspect Democratic candidates will do better in areas where Democrats already hold seats. I can hear someone saying “duh” reading this. But otherwise, I see Republicans keeping their supermajority and even picking up a couple more seats.

In the Senate where 17 out of 34 seats are on the ballot, I can see the Republican majority expanding to 26 seats. During redistricting last October, a small group of Republican senators tried to force on members an alternative map that really made no sense as far as lumping areas of the state together that have next to nothing in common other than it would have been beneficial for Republicans.

Instead, the two Republican senate groups came up with a compromise map that is the current map for this election. It’s mostly like past maps, but it does change up three districts typically held by Democrats. In two of those cases, I think it won’t help Republicans. In one case, I think it could hurt a Democratic incumbent.

In the 8th Senatorial District, Sen. Richard Lindsay, D-Kanawha, faces former Democrat-turned-Republican House of Delegates member Mark Hunt. That district includes a sliver of western Kanawha, eastern Putnam and Jackson counties, and Roane and Clay counties. Lindsay has been working that new district since he got lumped into it. Hunt is a controversial lawmaker — just do a Google search — and his recent party switch doesn’t help him.

In the 7th Senatorial District, Sen. Ron Stollings, D-Boone, faces Mike Stuart, a former U.S. Attorney, state Republican Party chairman and Donald Trump 2016 campaign chairman. Typically, that district includes Boone, Lincoln, and Logan counties, but southern Kanawha County got lumped in. Maybe that helps Stuart, but Stollings is a well-liked doctor in his community.

The one Democratic candidate that might have the most risk of being unseated in Senate Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier. The new 10th Senatorial District includes most of Fayette County and Nicholas, Greenbrier, Summers and Monroe counties. Nicholas County has not been part of that district in the past and a majority of its registered voters are Republican.

In fact, all lawmakers from those counties currently serving are Republican except Baldwin. He faces Republican opponent Vince Deeds who had a victory of his own last week after he was able to get a court to force one of the independent candidates off the ballot due to being a resident of Summers County, which already has state Sen. Jack Woodrum (you can’t have two senators in one district from the same county).

I’m told there was some concern of that independent candidate taking votes from Deeds. Surely the Deeds campaign knew about the residency issue. That tells me that they are seeing some polling or other indicators that the race could be very close.

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I had thought about writing about Amendment 2, but I write so much about Amendment 2 during the week that do you really want to see more words from me about Amendment 2?