My friend, Wheeling radio legend Howard Monroe, had me on The Watchdog Morning Show last week to talk about the U.S. Senate race. A couple of his listeners had complained that Howard was dedicating too much time to talking about the race and how they were getting burnt out from hearing about it.

How do you think people like Howard and I feel? We’re political junkies, but like any real or metaphorical drug, there can be too much of a good thing. I love politics and elections, but the last thing I wanted to do was begin covering the 2024 elections this early.

People started announcing back last November, two years out from the 2024 general election. We’re nine months away from the candidate filing period that begins the first January of an election year. We are a year away from the May party primaries. TV and social media ads are already out — attack ads — for races that no one can mark a ballot for any time soon.

And as I said on Twitter last week (you can follow me there at @stevenadamswv), I suspect we’re about to see one of the ugliest political primary seasons in West Virginia history, especially in the state Republican Party. I can already see some of the same divisions I pointed out during the 2023 legislative session between mainstream conservative Republicans and the more populist big-government natcon Republicans. The big tent that was once the Republican Party is no more.

Take the race for Attorney General for example. State Sen. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha, announced for Attorney General last week. As of now, he will face Senate Majority Whip Ryan Weld, R-Brooke.

Both have experience working for large legal firms. Both have experience as prosecutors (Stuart is a former U.S. attorney, Weld was an assistant county prosecutor). And both have legislative experience, though Stuart only has two and a half months under his belt while Weld has served a term in the House of Delegates and two four-year terms in the Senate.

But without naming Weld during his announcement last week, Stuart urged voters to compare him with his primary opponents and see who was the real conservative and who was a Republican In Name Only (RINO).

“When you look at folks who may run against me in this campaign, when they tell you they are conservative you need to look at their records,” Stuart said. “If their voting record is RINO, then they’re a RINO and it’s time we start paying attention to those things.”

Would I say Weld is a RINO? No, I would not say the person holding the title of majority whip, ranked third behind the Senate majority leader and the Senate president, is a Republican In Name Only. Both Weld and Stuart are conservatives. Now, is Stuart further to Weld’s right? Oh yes, without question.

The same goes for Gov. Jim Justice vs. Rep. Alex Mooney in the U.S. Senate Republican primary, though Mooney has more of a case to make against Justice than Stuart does against Weld. After all, Justice WAS a Democrat when he took office as governor in 2017, only switching to Republican later that summer after a rough first legislative session and at the behest of former president Donald Trump.

But is Justice a conservative? On the whole, I would say yes, but one can quibble on specific issues. Is Mooney a conservative? Oh yes. Is Mooney further to the right than Justice? Most definitely. The question will be whether West Virginia voters as a whole are as conservative as Mooney or more like Justice in their level of conservatism.

Keep in mind, many of West Virginia’s new Republican voters, particularly since the beginning of 2021 when Republicans first became the majority party registration in the state, were once Democrats themselves. Some of these issues pushed by very online natcon activists and on networks that cater to this audience might have sway. But I suspect most GOP voters in the state are more interested in the traditional meat-and-potatoes issues that usually animate primary voters.

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It’s also too early for real polling given that most people will likely tune out election messaging until closer to the primary and general elections. But early polling does have its uses.

National Journal’s Hotline released a poll of the U.S. Senate race last week conducted April 24-25. The primary poll included 753 likely voters with a margin of error of 3.54%. The general election poll included 974 likely voters with a 3.01% margin of error.

In the primary poll, Justice had 45% support to Mooney’s 17% support with 38% undecided. In the general election, Justice had 43% support and Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, had 29%, with 28% undecided. Those are big undecided numbers that could swing to either candidate between now and the elections, but they do show Justice being an early juggernaut.

As for a general election match between Manchin and Mooney? Manchin had 36% support to Mooney’s 30% with 34% undecided. Still, a lot of ground can be made up with undecideds, but that also is nearly the margin that Manchin defeated Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey by in the 2018 general election for Senate.