Justice Gears Up for U.S. Senate Run This Week
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CHARLESTON - After months of hinting and teases, Gov. Jim Justice is preparing to announce a run for the Republican U.S. Senate primary in 2024.
According to Politico, Justice will make his U.S. Senate candidacy announcement Thursday at 5 p.m. from his Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs. A source close to the governor confirmed the impending announcement by text Monday morning but declined to be identified or provide further details.
Justice has been teasing a possible run for U.S. Senate since the end of 2022, dangling an announcement date in February and again at the end of the 2023 legislative session in March. Justice is limited to two terms as governor of West Virginia, with his second term up in January 2025.
The winner of the 2024 Republican U.S. Senate primary will go on to possibly face U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who has yet to announce a run for a third six-year term as the state’s senior U.S. Senator. Manchin said earlier this month that he will announce his political intentions at the end of 2023.
Justice, the scion of a coal and agricultural dynasty, ran for governor in 2016 as a registered Democrat, defeating a former U.S. attorney and a former state senate president to secure the Democratic Party nomination. He defeated Mercer County automobile dealer Bill Cole - then serving as a Republican state senate president - in the 2016 general election.
After a tumultuous first six months as governor, Justice announced he was switching his voter registration to the Republican Party during a 2017 rally in Huntington with then-President Donald Trump. Despite a challenge from one of his former cabinet officials, Justice easily secured the Republican nomination for governor in 2020 and won the general election that year in a landslide over Democratic Kanawha County Commissioner Ben Salango.
Justice has remained one of the most popular governors in the nation for several quarters according to polling from Morning Consult. According to their survey conducted Jan. 1 through March 31 with 2,213 voters and 2% margin of error, 66% of respondents approved of the job Justice is doing as governor, while 31% disapprove and 4% did not know or had no opinion.
Two other Republican candidates have filed for U.S. Senate to date according to the U.S. Federal Election Commission: Granville electrician Chris Rose; and U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., who announced in November shortly after winning election to the new northern 2nd Congressional District.
In a statement released Monday afternoon, Mooney Campaign Manager John Findlay said they plan to use Justice’s record as governor and past statements against him.
“While we would welcome Jim Justice’s decision to run for U.S. Senate in West Virginia against Alex Mooney, we’d also like to be the first to tell him what a terrible idea it is,” Findlay said. “Jim Justice has a liberal record. Republican primary voters will soon see he is a Democrat in sheep’s clothing.”
Findlay pointed to past actions and statements, including proposing tax increases in 2017 to cover a $500 million hole in the general revenue budget; supporting age limits for purchasing certain rifles, such as the AR-15; supporting trillion-dollar federal COVID-19 and infrastructure spending bills signed into law by President Joe Biden; and past support for adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on employment and housing.
Mooney, a former Maryland state lawmaker and chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, moved to Jefferson County and won election in 2014 to the 2nd Congressional District seat previously held by U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. When West Virginia dropped from three congressional districts to two after the 2020 Census, Mooney defeated former six-term 1st District congressman David McKinley in the May 2022 Republican primary.
Justice has been actively recruited over the last several months by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and his Senate Leadership Fund which released polling recently showing Justice defeating Manchin in a theoretical match-up. According to a March poll released by National Public Affairs, Justice would defeat Mooney in a theoretical two-way primary race 55% to 24% with 21% undecided.
Mooney enjoys the support of the conservative Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund linked to former South Carolina U.S. senator and former Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint. Mooney also has the support of U.S. Senators Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Justice has been critical of Mooney, endorsing McKinley in the 2022 congressional Republican primary. Despite meeting several times, Justice claims to not know Mooney and has attacked him for his previous connections to Maryland.
“Who in the world in the State of West Virginia knows that Alex Mooney is a West Virginian? The truth of the matter is Alex Mooney is from Maryland,” Justice said Wednesday during his weekly administration briefing. “I promise you from Clarksburg south no one has hardly seen him.”