Trump Gets Win as Candidate Lands Primary Victory

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice has won his state’s Republican U.S. Senate primary election, delivering former President Donald Trump a key win that could decide which party controls the Senate next year.

Justice, who was endorsed by Trump shortly after entering the race last year, became the GOP Senate candidate on Tuesday night, more than doubling the vote total of his nearest competitor, U.S. Representative Alex Mooney, at the time of publication, according to the Associated Press.

While Mooney was also endorsed by Trump while winning reelection to his House seat in 2022, Justice is a very popular figure in West Virginia and likely represents a far greater threat to Democrats in the battle for the seat held by moderate Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who is not seeking reelection.

Justice, who became governor as a Democrat but switched allegiance to the GOP during a 2017 Trump rally, promised to follow an “America-First agenda” in the Senate following his win in a statement shared to X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday night.

“Thank you, West Virginia, for placing your support and trust in me,” Justice wrote. “I am truly humbled and will work every day to win in November so we can flip the Senate and deliver on our America-First agenda!”

Trump celebrated the win in a post to Truth Social a short time later, writing “Congratulations to Big Jim Justice!” while sharing a graphic touting his endorsement.

Newsweek reached out for comment to Trump’s office via email on Tuesday night.

Justice’s Trump-backed primary victory, as the Republican governor of a state that overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, was expected by most political observers.

However, Trump does not have a flawless track record of endorsed candidates winning U.S. Senate seats in high-profile general election races, with Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia being two notable examples of Trump endorsees whose 2022 defeats helped Democrats take control of the upper chamber.

Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor of Maryland who is known for being highly critical of Trump, also won his state’s GOP Senate primary on Tuesday, indicating that the former president’s seal of approval is not always required for Republicans to win elections.

A winner of West Virginia’s Democratic Senate primary had not been called at the time of publication, although Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott, who was endorsed by Manchin last month, was leading runner-up Zachary Shrewsbury by about 10 points.

Prior to Manchin announcing that he was retiring from the Senate last year, head-to-head polling between the incumbent senator and Justice indicated that Democrats were likely to lose the seat, with the Republican holding a double-digit lead.

Democrats are expected to have an even more difficult time maintaining control of the seat without Manchin, who is the only Democrat to hold a major office in the state. West Virginia was once considered a Democratic stronghold but has shifted to become overwhelmingly Republican in recent decades.