Republican Jim Justice flips US Senate seat from West Virginia after Manchin retirement

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Jim Justice won a U.S. Senate race from West Virginia on Tuesday, flipping a seat to the Republican Party after Joe Manchin decided not to seek reelection.

Justice, who boldly predicted victory long before the election, defeated Democrat Glenn Elliott, a lawyer and former mayor of the city of Wheeling who was endorsed by Manchin.

Justice compared his victory to when a 22-year-old Cassius Clay knocked out Sonny Liston for boxing’s world heavyweight championship in 1964, then declared, “I shook up the world.”

At his posh Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, Justice said in a victory speech that the political climate in Washington, D.C., is “completely dysfunctional” and “if you were to come to Jim Justice and say, ‘What do you want to do?’ And I would say, ‘I want to shake up the world.’ That’s exactly what I want to do.”

The 73-year-old Justice, who is finishing his second term as governor, continued taking advantage of former President Donald Trump’s popularity in ruby red West Virginia. Trump won the presidential race in the state by 42 percentage points in 2016 and 39 points in 2020. Justice was elected governor as a Democrat in 2016, then switched to the GOP seven months after entering office, taking the stage at an event with Trump to make the announcement.

A former billionaire, Justice and his family own dozens of businesses, including the Greenbrier. Justice spent considerable time as governor addressing court challenges that sought late payments and fines for his personal businesses.

This will mark the first time since 1958 that both of West Virginia’s U.S. senators are Republicans. The other is Shelley Moore Capito, who was elected to a second term in 2020.

“You may say to me, ‘Why in the world would you do this? Have you lost your mind?’ That’s probably a very, very good assumption,” Justice said.

In concluding his 10-minute speech, he again said, “Why is Jim Justice doing this? Why are there people that have stood up for this nation and done this? And it’s one thing. Because we’re worth it. We in this great country are worth it.”

More than a month before the election, Justice declared himself the winner and said he saw no need to debate Elliott. Justice pointed out that he easily won his primary over U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney despite not putting up any campaign signs.

Name recognition was key for one voter, Vickie Lanham. When asked why she picked Justice for Senate, the resident of the Charleston suburb of Cross Lanes replied: “Honestly the name, because it was familiar,” and said Justice had done a good job as governor.

While Elliott embarked on a tour of all 55 counties this summer, Justice conducted few campaign stops, instead making economic development announcements in his capacity as governor, bringing along his pet English bulldog, Babydog. Justice also mixed in political talk during his weekly online media briefings, often criticizing President Joe Biden’s policies.

William Harmon, a retiree from Hurricane, voted for Justice while wearing a golf shirt with the logo from the governor’s resort. But Harmon wasn’t sold on his job performance, saying Justice would need to be more focused if he gets to the Senate.

“I’m not a big Justice fan, frankly,” Harmon said. “He carries that dog around with him everywhere.”

Justice continuously fended off questions about the handling of his businesses. A credit collection company threatened to auction The Greenbrier Resort’s hotel unless payments were made on a defaulted loan. And the family had at least $2.4 million in missing contributions for about 400 hotel employees’ health insurance.

The 710-room Greenbrier hotel has hosted U.S. presidents, royalty and congressional retreats. It held a PGA Tour golf tournament from 2010 until 2019 and has welcomed NFL teams for training camps and practices. A once-secret 112,000-square-foot (10,080-square-meter) underground bunker built for Congress at the Greenbrier in case of nuclear attack during the Cold War now hosts tours.

In addition, Justice has been accused of being late in paying millions in other business loans and court fines for unsafe working conditions at his coal mines.

Some financial issues go back to before Justice became governor. In 2016, he owed millions in back taxes to some of Appalachia’s most impoverished counties, including one in Kentucky that was struggling to pay the debt on a new rec center and turned the lights off in its parks and reduced hot meals for senior citizens.

In 2021, Justice ended a long-running court challenge by a former lawmaker over his residency by agreeing to live in the seat of state government in Charleston. The suit was brought after bipartisan criticism that Justice lived 100 miles (160 kilometers) away in Lewisburg, close to his resort in White Sulphur Springs.

Manchin, who has been in office since 2010, chose not to run again a year ago and switched from Democrat to independent earlier this year. Before he changed parties, Manchin was the only Democrat holding statewide office.

Elliott, 52, once served as a legislative assistant to the late U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd. Manchin praised Elliott’s record as mayor of creating jobs, lowering the crime rate and revitalizing the downtown of the city of around 26,000 on the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

Courtney Ruppert, a teacher from Cross Lanes, voted for Elliott and said she didn’t like most of Justice’s policies as governor — especially in education.

“He did not do a whole lot for us, although he said he was going to,” she said. “I feel like he doesn’t have much of a backbone, unfortunately.”

Public school teacher salaries in West Virginia are among the lowest in the nation despite receiving a 5% pay raise earlier this year.

One important issue to Charleston court reporter Chassidy Bays was reproductive rights. She said she couldn’t vote for someone who supported the near-total abortion ban that Justice signed into law in September 2022.

“Historically, we (women) have been treated like property and garbage and that needs to stop,” Bays said.

John Raby, The Associated Press