Weekly West Virginia “Battle Royale” Senate Primary Update

With West Virginia Republicans’ “battle royale” Senate primary escalating, we’ll be providing updates on the latest in the “messy,” “costly,” and “bruising intraparty fight” between Alex Mooney and Jim Justice as the candidates continue to “bash” and “slam” each other.

Here’s what you might have missed this week: 

• Jim Justice’s lawyers attempted to “use [Justice’s] Senate bid as [an] excuse” to “shield [his] financial disclosures.” A judge “rejected those arguments,” and Mooney was quick to attack Justice, calling him “corrupt” and suggesting Justice is “ignoring the law” because he is “bankrupt,” or “owe[s] money to … the Chinese” or “the Russians.”

• The DSCC highlighted Justice’s failure to release his official schedule outside of his DC fundraiser. Reminder, the DSCC sued Justice for repeatedly failing to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests to release his official schedule. Justice has faced an ongoing scandal over his work schedule. The Associated Press reported Justice was “largely absent in job,” while the Charleston Gazette-Mail wrote that “work hasn’t always been top of mind for the two-term governor.” 

• Mooney has a new nickname for Justice: “the King of Scandals,” citing new reporting that details “one embarrassing scandal after another,” including Justice’s “mounting debt from unpaid fines,” his “failure to pay his property taxes,” and his “fail[ure] to pay nearly six years of retired mine worker benefits.” 

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