Paula Jean Swearengin


Paula Jean Swearengin is an American activist and the 2020 Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in West Virginia. She ran for the Senate against incumbent Senator Joe Manchin in the 2018 Democratic primary but was defeated, winning 30.21% of the vote. She is associated with the progressive organizations Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress.

Early life

Swearengin was born in Mullens, West Virginia to a family of coal miners, and raised in Yadkin County, North Carolina.

Career

Swearengin is a former board member and representative of the Keepers of the Mountain Foundation, a West Virginia organization that opposed mountaintop removal mining. She has also spoken on behalf of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and the Sierra Club at public fora and events, including EPA hearings on the Clean Power Plan. She supported Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign.
In May 2017, Swearengin announced her candidacy against Manchin in the 2018 United States Senate election in West Virginia. She was one of the first candidates Brand New Congress supported. In May 2017, the Charleston Gazette-Mail noted that several other candidates had received financial contributions from the coal industry but that Swearengin had no immediately apparent ties to it.
Swearengin supports a Medicare for All healthcare plan. She favors legalization of both medical and recreational cannabis. She supports raising the minimum wage to $15 and free public college tuition.
In January 2019, the documentary Knock Down the House premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It focuses on the primary campaigns of Swearengin, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela, and Cori Bush, four progressive Democrats who ran for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. Netflix released the film on May 1, 2019.
In June 2019, Swearengin announced her campaign for Senate against Republican incumbent Shelley Moore Capito, who has held office since 2015. Capito faced two Republican primary challengers, Larry Butcher and Allen Whitt, while Swearengin faced two Democrats in the June 9 primary, Richie Robb and Richard Ojeda. There is one unaffiliated candidate in the race, Franklin Riley. Swearengin won her primary with 38% of the vote to Ojeda's 33% and Robb's 29%.
Swearengin joined her three other Knock Down the House co-stars in endorsing Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.

Electoral history

Personal life

Swearengin is a single mother of four children and lives in Coal City, West Virginia. She lost one of her grandparents and several uncles to black lung disease.