Former President Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Alex Mooney over Rep. David McKinley in a primary contest pitting the two Republican West Virginia lawmakers against one another.
Following a loss in population after the 2020 census, West Virginia will lose a seat from its House delegation, consolidating large portions of the districts currently represented by Mooney and McKinley. Both will seek reelection.
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McKinley was one of the 13 House Republicans who recently voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, as well as one of the 35 Republicans to vote in favor of an independent Jan. 6 commission, both to the chagrin of the former president.
Taking aim at what he called the “Non-Infrastructure” and “the Unselect Committee of partisan hacks and degenerates,” Trump described Mooney as “strong on Crime, Borders, our great Military, and a champion for our Veterans.”
“He will always protect our Second Amendment, and of particular importance is the fact that Alex fights for energy and beautiful clean coal — and he will never stop,” Trump said. “Congressman Alex Mooney has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”
But Mooney isn’t currently the front-runner, and the new district includes larger portions of McKinley’s current district. A recent poll by GOPAC, a group that works to elect Republican candidates and has supported McKinley, found him leading Mooney 44% to 29% among likely Republican primary voters, with 18% undecided.
In a Nov. 5 statement, McKinley said he supports the infrastructure bill but not a larger social spending bill still under negotiation among congressional Democrats.
“Tonight, instead of playing politics, I put America and West Virginia first,” he said. “America’s infrastructure has been in dire need of modernization and this bipartisan infrastructure bill is what community leaders from one panhandle to the other have expressed that West Virginia needs to restore our aging infrastructure.”
“Let me be clear: the bipartisan infrastructure bill is a completely separate bill from the $4 trillion reckless, partisan Reconciliation Bill that includes funding for Democrat’s far left wish list, which I strongly oppose,” he continued. “Look, President Trump proposed a $2 trillion infrastructure plan during his administration, but Democrats played politics and made sure it did not happen. We cannot let our communities suffer the consequences of gamesmanship this time around. The bipartisan plan that passed the House will help transform West Virginia, resulting in better roads, reliable internet across our state, and needed upgrades to water systems that were built a century ago.”
He added, “We’ve all heard stories of children in West Virginia sitting in parking lots to do their schoolwork because their homes are not connected to reliable broadband internet. Tonight, I voted for those kids, and to give the next generation of West Virginians hope for a brighter future.”
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Trump criticized the Republicans who supported the infrastructure bill and hinted over the weekend at the endorsement, saying in a statement that any “good and SMART America First Republican Patriots” entering primaries against the Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill, including McKinley, “will have my backing!”
