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Justice, Mooney Senate Campaign Finance Numbers Note Diverse Support

The Republican U.S. Senate primary campaigns for Gov. Jim Justice and Rep. Alex Mooney released their candidates’ second quarter finance numbers this week.

The Federal Election Commission’s deadline for second quarter filing is July 15. Neither candidate had filed as of this story’s publishing.

The Justice campaign said it has raised more than $935,000 since he announced his candidacy in late April. The Mooney campaign says he raised $550,000 in the second quarter of 2023.

Mooney’s camp said it currently has $1.5 million cash on hand. Justice’s people report over $800,000 cash on hand entering the third fundraising quarter.

West Virginia University’s (WVU) Political Science Department Chair John Kilwein thinks the amounts were closer than expected.

“Given Justice’s popularity and support by Mitch McConnell and the polling data, I thought it was going to be a lot higher,” Kilwein said, referring to the Senate Republican leader from Kentucky, who recruited Justice to run.

The Justice campaign press release highlights “receiving support from 5,526 individual donors, with 93 percent of those donors giving less than $100.”

Mooney’s campaign release touts, “Club for Growth Action and Protect Freedom PAC (Political Action Committee) announced that it hauled in an impressive $13.55 million for Alex Mooney.”

Kilwein said both releases clearly come with a specific angle from the candidate’s perspective. He sees two possible scenarios for the dichotomy in highlighting small vs. big donations.

“One, you may be taking advantage of what is a reality that isn’t as helpful to you,” Kilwein said. “If that’s where you got the money from, then you simply have to brag about where you got it. Or, it just may be that both candidates are saying, here’s the narrative – Mooney may be explaining to more fiscally conservative voters, look who’s backing me. Justice is playing on his strength, a popular governor, well loved across the state.”

Mooney’s release notes, “Club for Growth PAC endorsed Alex Mooney in West Virginia’s U.S. Senate Race because Alex is a proven conservative.”

When asked about the PACs aligned with McConnell supporting Justice and how much money has been raised, Justice’s campaign manager Roman Stauffer suggested using this quote attributed to him, not answering the question:

“Governor Justice received tremendous support from West Virginians and others who have confidence in his leadership and conservative record and know he is the strongest candidate for the U.S. Senate,” Stauffer said. “Unlike our opponent, we are focused on talking to West Virginians and not coordinating with out-of-state groups desperate to influence this race.”

Justice and Mooney are the two leading Republican candidates on the May 2024 primary ballot. Incumbant Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has said he expects to announce his future political intentions in December.

Even with West Virginia being such a red state, Kilewein said Justice and Mooney “should not think this is going to be a cakewalk once it gets to the general election.”

“Why? Just because Manchin is Manchin,” Kilwein said. “It could be a complete wipeout. But I also think that it could be tough. I definitely could see Manchin run with this kind of folksy charm against Mooney, who certainly lacks that as someone who is not a native is needed. It will be a tougher battle between Justice and Manchin, but Justice comes to this with some problems with his companies and his age and his health, and his apparent lack of interest in not wanting to live in Charleston. How are you going to want to live in D.C.? I’m not saying that the Republicans are not going to win. I’m just saying that it may not be as easy as they think it is.”

West Virginia’s 2024 primary election is May 14.

Mountain Valley Pipeline Moves Forward In Debt Limit Bill In Congress

The bill includes a requirement that the project receive its final Corps of Engineers permit within 21 days.

The long-stalled Mountain Valley Pipeline is likely to move toward completion within weeks of passage of a bill in Congress.

Late Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill to raise the nation’s borrowing limit.

The bill includes a requirement that the Mountain Valley Pipeline receive its final Corps of Engineers permit within 21 days.

The bill must first pass the U.S. Senate. And even though both of Virginia’s U.S. senators have vowed to block the pipeline’s inclusion, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said their effort is unlikely to succeed.

“With the 21-day Corps of Engineers requirement,” she said in a briefing with reporters Thursday, “I think you’ll see people beginning to work on this by the first of July.”

The natural gas pipeline has been a top priority of both West Virginia’s U.S. senators.

Environmental and community groups oppose it because of impacts to water quality and the production of natural gas through hydraulic fracturing. They’ve had some success blocking it in federal court, but the bill cuts out the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has delivered consistent rulings against the project.

“Including the Mountain Valley Pipeline in the debt-limit deal is a dangerous precedent and potentially disastrous development for people, wildlife, and water along the project’s route,” said Mustafa Santiago Ali, executive vice president of the National Wildlife Federation.

In the House, Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., voted for the bill that includes it. Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., voted no.

“From completing the Mountain Valley Pipeline to cutting government spending,” Miller said in a statement late Wednesday, “voting ‘yes’ on this bill solidifies a conservative win for the American people.”

Mooney, who is challenging Gov. Jim Justice to be the Republican U.S. Senate nominee next year, saw it differently.

“This bill does not have comprehensive permitting reform to support America’s energy production,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “West Virginians are counting on me, a proven conservative, to hold our government accountable.”

U.S. Justice Department Sues Justice Family Coal Companies

The U.S. Justice Department is suing 13 companies owned by the family of Gov. Jim Justice over unpaid fines and fees.

Updated on Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 3:15 p.m.

The U.S. Justice Department is suing 13 companies owned by the family of Gov. Jim Justice, alleging they failed to pay fines and fees for more than 100 mine reclamation violations from 2018 to last year.

The DOJ seeks to recover $7.6 million in civil penalties, administrative fees and interest from coal companies owned by the Justice family.

The DOJ alleges that the companies are in violation of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act and the Abandoned Mine Land program.

Justice, a Republican, is seeking the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat Joe Manchin.

In a briefing Wednesday, Justice suggested the suit could be politically motivated, with Democrats holding a narrow Senate majority.

“There’s a lot at stake right now,” he said. “The entire U.S. Senate could be flipped. And that’s what I intend to help make happen.”

Justice, who isn’t named in the complaint, ran the companies until he was elected governor in 2016. His son, James C. Justice III, or Jay, has run the companies since then and is named in the 128-page complaint.

Justice first faces a Republican primary with Rep. Alex Mooney next year. Manchin has not said if he’ll run for re-election.

Roman Stauffer, Justice’s U.S. Senate campaign manager, said in a statement that the DOJ complaint was political and that Democrats would prefer to run against Mooney.

“Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and the Democrats have seen the polls that show Jim Justice winning this race, and they’re panicking. So now the Biden Justice Department has decided to play politics. We will see a lot more of this as the Democrats work to help Alex Mooney because they know they can easily beat him,” Stauffer said.

Many of the Justice family companies are based in Roanoke, Virginia. The DOJ complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia.

Christopher Kavanaugh, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, was nominated by President Joe Biden in 2021 and confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

“Over a five-year period, defendants engaged in over 130 violations of federal law, thereby posing health and safety risks to the public and the environment,” Kavanaugh said in a statement. “Today, the filing of this complaint continues the process of holding defendants accountable for jeopardizing the health and safety of the public and our environment.”

A 2016 NPR investigation found that Justice’s coal empire owed $15 million in taxes, fines and fees in six states.

The Justice family coal companies’ legal troubles have continued well into his time as governor of West Virginia. Here are some recent examples:

In May, a U.S. District judge in Charleston ruled that a Justice coal company owed a retired miner and his spouse six years of health care premiums.

In April, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled that two Justice companies must pay $2.5 million in penalties for thousands of water pollution violations in several states.

In March, an Elkins bank went to court to demand the repayment of an $861,000 loan to a Justice company and asked the state auditor to garnish the governor’s paycheck to settle the debt.

In January, another Justice company settled a lawsuit over incomplete mine reclamation work in Southwest Virginia.

In December, a Justice company reached a settlement in Birmingham, Alabama, for nearly $1 million for air pollution violations from a coke plant it owns there.

In 2019, the Trump DOJ sued 23 Justice family companies, seeking $4.7 million in unpaid mine safety and health violations. The DOJ and the companies reached a settlement in April 2020.

In March, before Justice announced his Senate bid, The Wall Street Journal reported that he was considering a sale of part of the family coal business.

W.Va.’s 2024 U.S. Senate Race: Justice Is In, But What About Manchin?

It is still a year away, but already, West Virginia’s U.S. Senate election is set to be one of the most competitive and most watched in the country.

To get an idea of how it might shape up, Curtis Tate spoke with Kyle Kondik, communications director for the University of Virginia Center for Politics. He’s also managing editor of its widely read newsletter, Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tate: What do you think Sen. Joe Manchin will do now that Gov. Jim Justice is in the race?

Kondik: I always hesitate to try to prognosticate how someone’s going to make a reelection decision, because at the end of the day, only he knows exactly what he is thinking. I think he’s certainly taking steps to allow himself to run for reelection again. But I think it’s an open question. He has suggested that decision might not come until December. So I guess it could happen at any time, while it might just actually wait until then.

From Democrats’ perspective, it’s not like there’s really anyone waiting in the wings who can replace Manchin as a credible candidate. Maybe the Democrats would be able to run someone with some name ID or something, but the Democratic bench in West Virginia has been completely wiped out. If you believe that Manchin, even if he runs, is an underdog – and that’s how I feel about it – if Manchin doesn’t run, it’s probably a runaway for whoever the Republican nominee is.

Tate: Is it a foregone conclusion that Justice will be the Republican nominee, over Rep. Alex Mooney?

Kondik: I don’t know if it’s a foregone conclusion. Republican primary electorates sometimes will go with someone who is more ideological, who is able to run them to the right of the other alternative. I will say that Jim Justice seems like a pretty popular governor. A lot of national Republicans really like Jim Justice and hope he’s the nominee.

I think he’d be a strong nominee, although I also think that Mooney would be capable of winning the seat, too, even though I think if you’re Joe Manchin, you’d certainly rather run against Mooney. But do I think Justice is favored? I think that recent polling has sort of suggested that, what we have out there publicly, but I think it’s still something of an open question anyway.

Tate: Who will Donald Trump endorse, Mooney or Justice? Or will he sit this one out?

Kondik: We’ll see if Trump intervenes in the race. Maybe he just stays out of it. But I think Mooney needs Trump’s endorsement more than Justice does. And it’s not like Trump never loses in a primary, but his candidates often do win. So we’ll have to see how that develops. But I don’t necessarily think that you can really point to anything in the past to predict what Trump’s gonna do. Just because Trump endorsed Mooney before, doesn’t mean he’s gonna endorse him now, because he’s got a good connection and relationship with Justice, as far as I know.

Tate: If Justice were to get elected to the Senate, he’d go right to the bottom of the heap in seniority. Do you think he’s considered that?

Kondik: There are a lot of governors who go on to become senators who then make it very publicly known that they preferred being governor. I can imagine that happening with Justice if, in fact, he gets elected. Manchin himself is like that. He’s mooted coming back to West Virginia and running for governor, although I believe he’s ruled that out and in a 2024 context. [Sen.] Mark Warner in neighboring Virginia has spoken wistfully of his time as governor compared to his time in the U.S. Senate. There really are tons of other examples.

What Justice is trying to do is very common as a sitting or former governor, running for the U.S. Senate, but it’s pretty rare to hear people who have served in both roles, saying that they prefer being a senator. Most of these folks prefer being governor. But often there’s a time limit with being a governor. You’re forced to try to figure out something else to do, which is what’s happening with Justice here.

Tate: With Senate control on the line next year, how does that affect Manchin’s working relationship with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, or for that matter, senators from any state with a split delegation?

Kondik: Broadly speaking, some of the themes of collegiality have eroded over time, but the senators can still work together on certain things, even as the campaign is going on. And again, this does happen pretty often, although there aren’t that many states now that have split Senate delegations. There are only five if you include Kyrsten Sinema, Bernie Sanders and Angus King, if you consider them Democrats as opposed to independents.

There are only five split Senate delegations: West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio, and then Wisconsin and Maine. Part of what’s going on here is there are fewer and fewer split party Senate delegations. If Republicans get their way, there are gonna be even fewer in 2024, if they aggressively try to flip Montana, Ohio and West Virginia, the three remaining Democrats in Trump-won states.

Tate: How would you rate Manchin’s chances if he decides to run?

Kondik: I would be surprised if Mancin got reelected. The trends are set. Manchin is such an outlier.Trump won his state by roughly 40 points. No other senator holds a state that’s even half as hostile as West Virginia is.

The next on the list is [Jon] Tester. Trump won Montana by 16 and a half points. In the House, the worst district that anyone holds, in terms of how it voted for president, the most lopsided against the party of the member who holds that house seat, it’s about 15 points.

Manchin is a real outlier now, and generally what happens with outliers is eventually they go away. That’s not to say Manchin is guaranteed to lose, but I do think he’s an underdog and that’s reflected in our ratings. We started West Virginia as ‘leans Republican,’ and if Manchin were to retire, we’d move it to ‘safe Republican.’ I don’t think there’s any path for Democrats to hold it without Manchin.

Justice Begins Campaign For U.S. Senate

Thursday afternoon at his family’s Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, with Babydog by his side, Gov. Jim Justice announced he is running for the United States Senate from West Virginia.

Justice is term-limited and cannot run for a third term as governor. He has been speculating about this run for months. He ran for governor in 2016 as a Democrat but switched parties roughly six months into his first term at a rally held by former President Donald Trump in Huntington.

Republican U.S. Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, W.Va., and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina introduced Justice by saying he’s needed in Washington to help return the U.S. Senate to a Republican majority. Capito spoke of her partnership with Justice.

“We’ve worked on economic development,” Capito said. “We’ve worked on the COVID response together. We worked on broadband deployment. I think we’re really gonna make a good pair in Washington.”

Graham said he came to this announcement because Justice is needed in the U.S. Senate.

“We need help in Washington,” Graham said. “We need a winner. We need somebody who can win in a general election, a conservative who can move the ball forward in Washington, D.C.”

Justice opened his remarks by giving numerous reasons the Biden Administration is going down the wrong path. He touted his six-year record in West Virginia with tax cuts, an abortion ban, campus carry, school choice and huge budget surpluses. He said he will take that work ethic, wrapped in conservative values, to Capitol Hill.

“Too many politicians today want something for them,” Justice said. “I’ve never wanted anything. How in the world do you think we’re perceived with our allies? I mean, look what happened in Afghanistan? Look what’s going on at the border. Look what’s going on with inflation. Look what’s going on with energy. It’s just all over the park. We’re gonna have to do something about it.”

Justice’s key competitor in the Republican Primary will be U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney. Both men have been endorsed in previous elections by former President Donald Trump. West Virginia Republican Party Chair Elgine McArdle said a Trump endorsement could be key.

“It could be important, especially in the state of West Virginia,” McArdle said. “West Virginia went heavily for President Trump in the last election, and we are very, very red at this point. I think President Trump’s influence, certainly in West Virginia, is strong. And I think that will potentially play a big role in the primary.”

The West Virginia Democratic Party Chair is Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha. He said a Justice/Mooney primary will be a messy battle, with both candidates damaged going into the general election.

“On one hand, you have a congressman who is still under a Congressional Ethics probe for misuse of campaign funds that he’s appeared to spend on himself,” Pushkin said. “And on the other side, you have a governor who has had scandal with the State Police, a totally toxic culture at the DHHR, our prisons are under a state of emergency because they’re so understaffed that he’s had to call in the National Guard. They will be damaged,”

The state’s other incumbent U.S. senator is Democrat Joe Manchin, who said he’ll announce his election plans in December. He faced stiff opposition in his last election from Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, but Morrisey has declared his intention to run for governor.

In deeply red West Virginia, political observers believe Manchin’s seat is in play to flip Republican, with the potential to shift control of the evenly divided chamber away from Democrats.

On his website, Manchin said any race he runs, he will win.

“I am laser focused on doing the job West Virginians elected me to do,” Manchin said. “Lowering healthcare costs, protecting Social Security and Medicare, shoring up American energy security and getting our fiscal house in order. But make no mistake, I will win any race I enter.”

Coal miner and self-described “ultra-MAGA” political outsider Chris Rose has also announced a run for the seat.

Justice closed his announcement remarks by bringing his extended family on stage, shy grandson and all, and quoting one of his father’s homespun sayings.

“Any frog that is not proud of their own pond isn’t much of a frog,” Justice said. “Just know this, I’m certain of this family, me and even Babydog that we’re dang proud of the United States of America and this great state.”

The West Virginia Primary Election is a little more than a year away.

Justice Expected To Make Senate Announcement

After months of speculation, Gov. Jim Justice is expected to announce his bid for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Joe Manchin later Thursday.

The Justice campaign has scheduled an announcement from The Greenbrier Resort that he owns with his family at 5 p.m. News reports indicate Justice has already filed his candidacy papers with the Federal Elections Commission.

Justice is term-limited and cannot run for a third term as governor. He ran for governor in 2016 as a Democrat but switched parties roughly six months into his first term at a rally held by former President Donald Trump in Huntington.

Manchin has not announced whether or not he will run for a third term. He faced stiff opposition in his last election from Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, but Morrisey has declared his intention to run for governor.

In deeply red West Virginia, political observers believe Manchin’s seat is in play to flip Republican, with the potential to shift control of the evenly divided chamber away from Democrats.

Republican U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney declared earlier this year that he was running for the seat. Mooney was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2014.

Coal miner and self-described “ultra-MAGA” political outsider Chris Rose has also announced a run for the seat.

A live stream of the Special Announcement will be available at: