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Now that U.S. Sen. Jim Justice has settled the issues with the Greenbrier Resort, for now, much speculation has turned to the idea that he might run again for governor in 2028.
Yes, rumors have been rampant for some time that Justice wants to come back. Much like his predecessor - former two-term governor and two-term U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin - Justice has never really acclimated to the environment of the U.S. Senate.
It is notoriously hard for governors to transition to the legislative branch. Even though Manchin started his political career in the West Virginia Legislature, too many years in the executive branch spoiled Manchin. At one point, he famously said the U.S. Senate "sucks."
When you go from being the guy who makes the decisions to being one of 100, or even less than that depending on how many people are in your party caucus, it can be frustrating. Especially when you're at the beginning of a six-year term. Because Justice waited as long as he did to resign as governor to take his Senate seat, he started off 2025 as number 100. His seniority has improved since then, but not by much.
That means Justice is at the bottom of most committees and the committees he is on are minor. It means it is harder to get your bills considered. According to Congress.gov, Justice only has 17 pieces of sponsored legislation. Only 16 of Justice's remarks have been listed in the Congressional Record.
Two resolutions, one commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 2016 floods in West Virginia and one designating a National Miners Day, were agreed to in the Senate during his tenure. A bill to transfer some land owned by the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park for a U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Advanced Training Center, passed the Senate but hasn't made it out of the House of Representatives. Same with a bill for a national Medal of Honor monument for the late West Virginia native and Marine Hershel "Woody" Williams.
At best, Justice has been a dedicated pusher of the green button for the Senate Republican majority and a needed vote for President Donald Trump. But how challenging is any of that? He gets no hard questions from the U.S. Capitol press corps. Everyone on Capitol Hill is enamored with Babydog. The man has to be bored.
I've been on the fence about a possible Justice run for governor for some time now. He raised roughly $3.4 million by the time the 2024 general election for U.S. Senate wrapped up, mostly on his behalf by the National Republican Senatorial Committee with almost no money coming from Justice himself. I figured Senate Republican leadership would have something to say about raising all of that money only for Justice to serve four years of a six-year term.
Sure, West Virginia is a red state and the likelihood of being able to keep that seat in GOP hands in 2030 is pretty good. But that is still money that national Republican operatives are going to have to raise when those funds could go toward a possible GOP pickup.
However, Gov. Patrick Morrisey has been getting under Justice's skin from nearly day one, when Morrisey claimed the prior administration left him with a $400 million structural deficit heading into fiscal year 2026. As I explained at the time, the issue was more a difference in the ways Justice and Morrisey chose to do their general revenue budgets and was a non-issue when the Legislature passed a balanced budget a couple of months later, but Justice remained annoyed.
"I love the great people of West Virginia. I will never tell them anything but the truth, and I will never forsake them," Justice said in a May 2025 press release. "The doom and gloom of a $400 million hole in the bucket was never right. Not then and not now. My administration proudly worked well with the legislature, and together we led our state from bankruptcy to prosperity."
In fact, many of the press releases from Justice's U.S. Senate communications team have been celebrating things that began when he was governor or weighing in on state-level issues. In June 2025, Justice called on the state Economic Development Authority to transfer $50 million Cleveland-Cliffs received through a forgivable loan for a failed project in Weirton to the state's regional airports (which he should have known can't actually be done).
Morrisey has been careful not to speak Justice's name when leveling criticisms about issues he inherited, but Justice is smart enough to see through that. Most recently, Morrisey and State Treasurer Larry Pack – Justice's senior adviser and former Revenue secretary - had a back-and-forth over issues surrounding the spending down of federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families dollars during the Justice years.
Speaking of Pack, whom many believe has spent the last nearly 20 months positioning himself for a 2028 GOP primary challenge to Morrisey, if Justice does choose to cannonball back into the state political pool, that will clear the deck of most potential GOP challengers. Justice remains very popular and is the better retail politician.
Does Justice bring baggage? Of course, and it's the job of the media to make sure you're aware of those issues. But as we've seen in 2016, 2020 and 2024, voters don't seem to care. Also, Morrisey is a prolific fundraiser with PACs and advocacy groups in his corner. Justice hasn't fought a well-funded opponent before.
According to the 2024 GOP primary election results, more voters cast votes in the Republican primary for governor than they did in the U.S. Senate primary. But Justice had 138,328 votes, beating former Rep. Alex Mooney 62% to 27% in a seven-person race. In a six-person race, Morrisey received 75,148 votes with 33% of the vote.
A Morrisey versus Justice fight in 2028 would be interesting to see.