A source told The Messenger that the spending was aimed at ensuring Sen. Joe Manchin didn’t decide to get back into the race.
A super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell funded a PAC that spent $895,000 on ads in the West Virginia GOP Senate primary, a source told The Messenger Wednesday.
Conservative Americans PAC, which was created in November of last year, has run ads supporting West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice — who Senate Republicans recruited into the race. Justice, a popular figure in the Mountaineer state, was wooed by Senate Republicans to run for the seat currently held by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. The PAC will have to disclose its donors by the end of the day when its end-of-year report is due to the Federal Election Commission.
Manchin, a Democrat representing one of the reddest states in the nation, decided not to seek reelection, and the seat is expected to go into the Republican column in November. Justice is the heavy favorite to win the primary and the general election in November.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is backing Justice, and so is former President Donald Trump. However, Justice still has a primary challenger in Rep. Alex Mooney, who represents the northern half of the state.
A source familiar with SLF’s involvement in the West Virginia GOP primary told The Messenger that the spending was an offensive play to ensure that Manchin didn’t make a last-second reversal and decide to get back into the race. The filing deadline for the May 14 primary was last Saturday.
Mooney hasn’t raised a lot of money in his uphill challenge to Justice, but he has support from the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group that spends heavily in GOP primaries across the country. So far, they’ve spent $1.16 million in the primary. That’s a fraction of what they raised, however, to support Mooney in the primary – the group announced back in July that they raised over $13.5 million to support him against Justice.
But polling has shown Justice is far ahead of Mooney. A WMOV/American Pulse survey taken in November found Justice led Mooney, 56%-20%. Tony Fabrizio, a pollster for both Trump and Justice, told The Messenger in October that a slew of negative headlines in Justice had no impact on his standing among West Virginia voters.