Joe Manchin’s indecision leaves West Virginia Senate race underway without him.
The 2024 Race for Sen. Joe Manchin’s Senate Seat
The 2024 race for Sen. Joe Manchin’s coveted Senate seat is well underway despite the incumbent Democrat refusing to say if he’ll throw his hat in the ring.
Manchin, a centrist Democrat representing the now heavily Republican state, has yet to decide if he’ll run for a third full term in 2024 and maintains that he is still unsure what he’ll do. He has also fiercely defended plans from the centrist group No Labels to create a third-party presidential ticket amid speculation that he could be their nominee.
Gov. Jim Justice: Manchin’s Main GOP Competitor
Gov. Jim Justice (R-WV), a Democrat-turned-Republican, is the only GOP candidate in the ruby-red state who polls competitively against Manchin, a longtime friend-turned-political foe. Manchin, a former governor himself, had endorsed Justice in his crowded 2016 gubernatorial primary race when the latter announced his party switch.
Justice, who boasts impressively high approval ratings in the state, has also polled well ahead of his main primary competitor, Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV), who launched his Senate bid late last year.
The House lawmaker has the backing of the conservative Club for Growth, which has been blanketing the airwaves with campaign ads painting Justice as an out-of-touch “RINO,” or Republican in name only. The governor, meanwhile, has the full support of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
The NRSC’s Strategy for 2024
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), who chairs the NRSC this cycle, have worked for months to recruit the most electable candidates in must-win swing states to retake the majority next year. Both men have said their path to victory relies on wins in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, four states with Democratic incumbents up for reelection. Democrats currently only control the Senate by a 51-49 margin, meaning Republicans only need to net two seats to win back control.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) chaired the NRSC in the 2022 cycle and sparred with McConnell publicly and privately over primary strategy. The NRSC remained neutral in the 2022 primary process as former President Donald Trump got involved, which led to several controversial candidates reaching general election voters. Those nominees faltered in race after race and ultimately cost Republicans control of the Senate. The losses were a core reason for the 2024 strategy changes.
The NRSC has gotten involved in the Montana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia GOP primaries to boost leadership’s preferred candidates, including Justice. In Ohio, however, the party’s Senate campaign arm has stayed out of the growing primary field given the quality of candidates leading that race.
Justice’s Financial Challenges
Justice’s family business oversees an empire of coal mines, processing facilities, agricultural companies, and the landmark Greenbrier resort in his home state. The Justice family businesses, as well as the governor and his children, have faced increased scrutiny over their nearly $1 billion in debt since entering the race to unseat Manchin.
The governor’s net worth rose to its highest point in 2009, when he was valued at $1.7 billion after selling Bluestone Resources Inc., the company that oversees the family’s coal operations, to Mechel PAO, a Russian coal producer with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, for more than $400 million in cash and several hundred million dollars in stock options. The deal was estimated to be worth over $1.5 billion. The value of his vast fortune plummeted, however, after Justice bought back Bluestone in 2015 for just $5 million plus royalty payments on future coal sales.
Despite the price drop, buying back Bluestone appeared to be the beginning of Justice’s financial woes.
The firm was a money pit, facing scores of lawsuits that continue to damage the company’s overall financial position. While coal prices rebounded early last year after Russia invaded Ukraine, it has not been enough to revive the firm.
Making matters more difficult for Justice is the $850 million in personally backed loans he and his children took out from Greensill Capital, which collapsed in early 2021. Justice and his children, whom he handed control of the family companies over to upon taking office as governor, have been in dispute with Credit Suisse Group AG, Grensill’s main financing partner, over paying back the sum since the firm went under.
They struck a repayment agreement last summer that would have Justice pay back as much as $320 million in installments from cash generated through Bluestone. The deal reduced how much Justice would be responsible for paying back from $850 million to $620 million.
Justice has said he turned to Greensill for help with rebuilding the company and described the debt in June 2021 as “a burden on our family beyond belief, and we’ll have to deal with it. It’s tough. It is really tough.” He has also denied any wrongdoing by him or his companies, saying “we didn’t have one earthly clue” of the problems that would emerge from borrowing so much from Greensill.
Justice’s financial situation has cost him his status as West Virginia’s richest person. Forbes magazine, which does the tally, knocked Justice from the top spot in May “due to heavy debts,” replacing him with Brad Smith, the president of Marshall University, who has an estimated $700 million net worth.
The NRSC’s Support for Justice
For its part, the NRSC has stood behind its candidate of choice, going as far as to condemn the Justice Department for filing suit against Justice’s coal empire over “unpaid civil penalties” in late May. The 128-page suit against the Justices and 13 of their coal companies alleges “over 130 violations of federal law, thereby posing health and safety risks to the public and the environment,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim said in a statement on the charges.
“Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has gone totally rogue,” NRSC spokesman Tate Mitchell said in a statement at the time. “Democrats weaponizing the federal government to attack the family of a Republican Senate candidate is a complete abuse of power.”
Asked what made Justice such a strong candidate in an interview earlier this month, Daines said, “I think he’s been a proven governor in West Virginia. He’s a very known entity. Alex has represented half the state, Justice the entire state. And he relates very well to West Virginians, they know him, they trust him.”
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