When and if West Virginia Governor Jim Justice enters the race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2024, he will start with a significant advantage over 2nd District Representative Alex Mooney.
A recent poll of likely Republican and Independent voters shows Justice at 55 percent, Mooney at 24 percent and 21 percent undecided. The poll by National Public Affairs has Justice with an enviable 77 favorable rating among Republicans and Independents.
However, there is a template for a Mooney victory, and it is the 2022 Republican Senate primary in North Carolina.
A WPA Intelligence Poll a year before that election showed former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory with a 24 point lead over Representative Ted Budd in the race for the open seat. Budd had only half the name ID as McCrory.
However, when the votes were counted in the May 2022 Republican Primary, Budd won by more than 30 points! He went on to defeat Democrat Cheri Beasley in the General Election by three points.
One of the difference makers for Budd was the role of the Club for Growth. The conservative political action committee had backed Budd since his 2016 primary for U.S. House, and it spent nearly $12 million supporting him in the 2022 Senate primary.
The Club ads attacked McCrory as a “lying liberal” who was disloyal to Trump. The former President had endorsed Budd. All told, the Club and related super PACs spent $14 million in the North Carolina Senate race in support of Budd.
“I think it’s all about the money,” Carter Wren, a North Carolina GOP strategist, told NBC News at the time. “That sounds too simple to be true. But, you know, you’re talking about a statewide race where you got to talk to a million primary voters.”
Now, back to West Virginia, where the Club for Growth is all in for Mooney. It has pledged up to $10 million in support of his campaign.
“Rep. Mooney has proven in his time in Congress that he is a conservative champion who will fight for lower taxes, safer streets, school freedom, and parental rights for the people of West Virginia,” Club president David McIntosh said in a statement to Politico. “Mooney will be a great U.S. Senator and we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he’s elected.”
Meanwhile, the Mooney campaign has released a poll that gives some idea of how it is going to attack Justice. The survey was heavily weighted with questions designed to sway voters away from Justice and toward Mooney.
For example, when voters were told that “Jim Justice pledged to sign into law the so-called Fairness Act that gives special rights to transgender individuals and takes away our religious liberties,” 70 percent of those questioned were “less likely” to vote for him.*
Perhaps this poll was more about field testing what messages would work against Justice. Mooney will need that if he hopes to catch and pass Justice.
There is one significant advantage that Budd and the Club for Growth had in 2022 that they may or may not have in the West Virginia race: Donald Trump backed Budd. He and the Club made sure voters knew that.
Trump backed Mooney against David McKinley in the 2022 Republican Congressional Primary. The former president has not made a commitment yet for 2024, and Justice has a personal friendship with Trump.
It is a misnomer that all campaigns are different. In fact, with the nationalization of politics, many campaigns are remarkably similar. Alex Mooney and the Club for Growth do not have to start from scratch in Mooney’s potentially uphill battle against Jim Justice; they just have to borrow from the Tar Heel state template.
*(That is misleading. Justice did say during a 2020 Gubernatorial Debate that he would support legislation adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the categories covered by the Human Rights Act prohibiting discrimination. The bill did not pass. It is a matter of opinion whether that bill would have given “special rights” to transgender individuals or taken away religious liberties.)