Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) announced on Tuesday that he will mount a challenge against Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) in 2024. Mooney is an active member of the House Freedom Congress and was strongly endorsed by President Donald Trump this year when he faced a GOP primary contest in West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District.
Manchin, 75, has been in the Senate since 2010 when he won a special election. He was reelected in 2012 and 2018. Mooney, 51, was first elected to the House in 2014.
BREAKING: GOP WV Rep Alex Mooney officially announces he's running against Manchin in '24
— Election Wizard 🇺🇸 (@ElectionWiz) November 15, 2022
Mooney said during a radio interview Tuesday that “West Virginia values are at risk in this country. We’re bankrupting America. I want to be a part of the solution there.” He went on to say during the interview that he was “announcing it right now that I’m running for the U.S. Senate.”
He added, “I’m all in.”
In endorsing Mooney earlier this year, President Trump wrote that the congressman had done an outstanding job for the people of West Virginia. He added: “He recently opposed the horrendous Biden Administration’s ‘Non-Infrastructure’ plan, and he opposed the January 6th Committee, also known as the Unselect Committee of partisan hacks and degenerates.”
Trump added that Mooney has a strong track record on crime, the border crisis, supporting veterans and the military, and the Second Amendment. He went on to write that it is particularly important that Mooney fights for “energy and beautiful clean coal — and he will never stop.”
Reports have circulated that West Virginia’s Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has been considering a run for the GOP nomination to take on Manchin in 2024.
Morrison recently told reporters that he has been asked to consider a run at either the Senate, House, or to be governor of the state. He said that he plans to give all options “appropriate and due consideration,” but noted that running against Manchin would mean “taking on a tough incumbent.”
For his part, Mooney has expressed no such hesitation in taking on the long-popular Manchin, whose reputation among West Virginia has suffered during the Biden administration.
Mooney told the Associated Press that he is of course aware that Manchin has “been around a long time” and “has a lot of money.” He added that he wants “to make my intentions known to anybody, including Joe Manchin himself.”
“I think I’ll defeat him,” he said.
