Last month, I lost my primary election to continue representing the voters of West Virginia’s 15th Senate district. Normally, this is not something I would seek to draw attention to — no one likes losing. And normally, it’s not something that Americans across the country should be expected to pay attention to. But my defeat and the reasons for it are being egregiously mischaracterized by Washington, D.C., special interests posing as defenders of hard-working conservative voters in the Mountain State.

The reasons I lost are evident to anyone on the ground here in West Virginia. One reason you will not find among them is my support for a federal drug discount program that costs taxpayers nothing, and disproportionately benefits rural, working-class voters — you might even call them MAGA supporters — in places like my district. Here’s the rub: Big pharmaceutical companies hate this program because it cuts into their enormous profits. Because I defended it, an organization with ties to Big Pharma spent money opposing me and now they are trying to take a victory lap and scare other Republicans into abandoning their support for this program. They are wrong, and my fellow Republicans should not listen.

It’s worth noting that the same night I lost, Gov. Jim Justice — who is endorsed by President Trump, I might add — won a critically important primary for a seat in the U.S. Senate. West Virginians are rightfully elated. Governor Justice has been a huge supporter of this program. He signed the legislation protecting 340B pharmacies that passed the West Virginia Senate unanimously this year. And we can hope he will continue to champion it when he gets to Washington in January.

This wasn’t luck or some sort of fluke. Governor Justice knows full well how the 340B program provides a lifeline to rural hospitals and clinics in our state by allowing them to acquire drugs from pharmaceutical manufacturers at a discount, and then pass that discount on to patients in the form of free or low-cost prescriptions and care for conditions ranging from diabetes to black lung. As a result, many of our small rural hospitals have been able to keep their doors open while so many others have had to close up shop.

Governor Justice’s support should refute the notion that support for 340B is somehow unconservative or problematic. Under his leadership, West Virginia became one of the latest handful of states to take action to protect 340B, but it is hardly alone. A whole slew of deep red states recently have moved to protect the program because it benefits rural, working-class voters, and Big Pharma has gone to court to block some of those laws while hiring lobbyists to try to convince other states not to approve it.

Arkansas was one of the first to act and has begun enforcing it, much to the chagrin of pharmaceutical companies, who tried to fight this enforcement and have lost to the state in court. Louisiana, Mississippi and Kansas are the other deep red states — beyond West Virginia — to copy Arkansas and enact bills like the one I backed into law. Similar legislation has also passed overwhelmingly in Missouri — which used to be a swing state, but in the Trump era has turned deep red. Meanwhile, it is blue states like California, New York and Connecticut that have actually been seeking to clamp down on the 340B program.

President Trump took action to bolster 340B, probably because he knows where his voters’ economic interests lie.

Meanwhile, D.C. consultants aligned with Republicans who ran against Trump in the GOP primary are claiming the program is some sort of boon for unlawful immigrants. We don’t have a lot of those in West Virginia, but we do have a lot of American born-and-bred blue collar workers who pull in far less than D.C. lobbyists and who need this program or else their health care will evaporate.

This will occur while illegal immigrants benefit from “affordable medicine” initiatives directly and explicitly run by pharmaceutical companies themselves, some of whom directly pay Mexican nationals to cross the border and “donate” blood or blood plasma.

Shame on the Washington insiders who were willing pawns for pharmaceutical companies.

They strategically chose a state like West Virginia that has less expensive airtime to run ads and then pretended their short campaign was the deciding factor in this race. While their election strategy was an obvious failure, they’ve sadly had success in deceiving the media and making them think this strategy moved the needle.

Sadly, this means they will keep lying and playing dirty tricks in red states and hurting hard-working rural Americans in the process.

Republican officeholders and candidates should not be intimidated into softening their support for 340B based on smoke-and-mirror tricks conjured up in Washington, D.C., board rooms by consultants who will do anything for a check.

And voters in states like ours should know that they benefit most from the program under attack.

Without it, their health options and health outcomes will decline, and the plight of rural America will continue to worsen.

Republican Craig Blair of Berkeley County is president of the West Virginia Senate and Lieutenant Governor of the state of West Virginia.