CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — In an early victory for a candidate endorsed by Donald Trump at the start of the midterm season, Rep. Alex Mooney beat incumbent Rep. David McKinley in the Republican primary Tuesday for West Virginia’s 2nd congressional district.
CHARLESTON, WV (AP) — In an early victory for a candidate endorsed by Donald Trump at the start of the midterm season, Rep. Alex Mooney beat incumbent Rep. David McKinley on Tuesday in West Virginia’s 2nd congressional district Republican primaries.
“Donald Trump loves West Virginia and West Virginia loves Donald Trump,” Mooney said in her victory speech.
McKinley came under fire from the former president when he broke with his party as one of 13 Republicans who voted with Democrats to support President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. Trump called McKinley a RINO, or “Republican in name only,” and endorsed Mooney the day Biden signed the infrastructure bill.
The two incumbents, who have taken dramatically different approaches in their time in office, clashed in the state’s 2nd congressional district after population losses cost West Virginia a seat in the US House of Representatives. .
McKinley, who has represented the state in the House since 2011, said in a statement late Tuesday that serving the people of West Virginia had been the honor of his life, and he made a subtle reference to the infrastructure vote.
“I am proud that I have always stood up for what is right for West Virginia, even when it hurt me politically,” he said. “The groundwork we have laid over the past twelve years has paved the way for a more prosperous and diverse West Virginia economy.”
Mooney, who has served on the West Virginia House delegation since 2015, delivered his victory speech surrounded by well-wishers at a watch party at a hotel in Charles Town, in far eastern West Virginia, where he lives. McKinley was viewing the results at home with his family.
West Virginia’s election was the first of five primaries in which two incumbent members of the US House of Representatives will compete against each other. Similar contests will follow in Georgia and Michigan and in two districts in Illinois.
the race was one of the most viewed of the day. In Nebraska, another Trump-backed candidate, Charles Herbster, was in a field packed with Republican gubernatorial candidates. The races came on the heels of a victory by Trump-backed conservative JD Vance, author of the best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” who defeated six other candidates. to win the Ohio Republican primary for the US Senate last week.
Earlier Tuesday night, Trump-backed incumbent U.S. Representative Carol Miller stormed to the Republican nomination in West Virginia’s 1st district, defeating four little-known candidates and putting herself on a clear path to re-election.
Miller will run for her third term in the House in the fall against Democrat Lacy Watson, who was unopposed in the Democratic primary. Watson, from Bluefield, lost in the 2020 Democratic primary in the old 3rd District.
In Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district in the Omaha area, three-term Republican Rep. Don Bacon won the primary over long-shot candidate Steve Kuehl, an Omaha consultant who received an accolade from Trump when the former president visited early this month.
Trump slammed Bacon as a “bad boy” during a recent rally in the state and had previously criticized him for his support of a federal infrastructure bill opposed by most Republican lawmakers. Bacon has also mildly criticized Trump in the past, saying the former president bore some responsibility for the Jan. 6 riots at the US Capitol.
However, Trump stopped short of officially endorsing Kuehl, saying, “I think Steve will do well. Good luck, Steve, who the hell are you.
Senator Mike Flood, a former speaker of the Nebraska Legislature, won the state’s 1st Congressional District over five other Republican candidates. Flood wants to fill the seat vacated by Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican who resigned from office and ended his re-election bid after being convicted of lying to federal authorities about an illegal campaign contribution. Fortenberry’s name still appeared on the ballot for the 1st Congressional District because he withdrew after the deadline to certify the ballot.
In the rural and geographically vast 3rd Congressional District, Republican US Rep. Adrian Smith easily won his party’s nomination. Two Democrats were vying for their party’s nomination within the district, which is overwhelmingly Republican.
In West Virginia’s 2nd congressional district, McKinley’s decision to support the infrastructure bill was on the minds of voters.
Susan Smith, a small business owner in Valley Grove, voted for Mooney at a local elementary school Tuesday morning. She lives in the old district of McKinley and said she has always voted for him in the past. But not in this election.
“When Mr. McKinley started voting with the Democrats and the current administration, that’s when things changed,” said Smith, who cited McKinley’s vote in favor of Biden’s infrastructure bill and the Jan. 6 commission. . “I am sorry to lose a congressman, but we cannot allow a Republican congressman to vote with the Democrats. West Virginia did not need the money from this bill without infrastructure.”
In the general election, Mooney will face openly gay former Morgantown City Councilman Barry Wendell, who edged out security operations manager Angela Dwyer during Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
Mooney enters the general election as the heavy favorite to win. West Virginia has not elected a Democrat to the House since 2008.
___
Associated Press writer Grant Schulte in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP for full coverage of midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics.
Lea Willingham, Associated Press
Reference-www.squamishchief.com