CHARLESTON, W.Va. — He moved to West Virginia just last year. Now, Alex Mooney is the Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives in West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District.
HOUSE RESULTS: Updated voting totals for Congressional primaries.
On Tuesday night, MetroNews was projecting Mooney—a former Maryland legislator—would win the Republican primary in West Virginia and move on to the Nov. 4 general election.
“I’m proud to have made a choice to live in West Virginia,” Mooney said after being nominated. “I’m here to stay. I love this state. I wanted to live in a state that shares our values.”
Mooney won decisively in a crowded race for the Republican nomination that included six other candidates.
“I’m very pleased with the margin (of victory). I’m pleased with the voters. I know, honestly, what I was hearing from the voters of West Virginia as I was campaigning across the district this whole time, was that they wanted a conservative,” he said.
A former state Democratic Party chairman is that party’s nominee for the U.S. House in the 2nd Congressional District. Nick Casey, 60, secured the Democratic nomination in Tuesday’s primary election and will advance to the Nov. 4 general election.
He said his campaign in the months ahead, though, will not be about party. “I run as Nick Casey. When I used to work on campaigns with (U.S. Senator) Joe Manchin and (late U.S. Senator Robert C.) Byrd, they ran as Robert C. Byrd and Joe Manchin,” Casey told MetroNews on Tuesday night.
“So, if people do want to delve into this ‘R’ and ‘D’ stuff, they’re going to have the same kind of divisive government they’ve got in Washington right now and I don’t think West Virginians want that. I think they want something better.”
Casey, 60, is a managing partner for Lewis, Glasser, Casey and Rollins in Charleston. In addition to serving as the party’s chair, he has worked closely with U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on several of his campaigns and has spent time as a lobbyist.
A Dartmouth graduate, Mooney first ran for public office in New Hampshire.
He went on to serve in the Maryland State Senate, representing District 3, which includes parts of Frederick County and Washington County, from 1999-2010. In December 2010, Mooney was elected chairman of the Maryland Republican Party.
In 2012, he considered a run for the Republican nomination for the U.S. House in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, but opted out. Mooney and his wife, Dr. Grace Gonzalez Mooney, moved to Jefferson County in 2013, where they now live with their two children near Charles Town.
“The thing I heard most from voters — are you really going to stand up against the spending? They didn’t care what part of the District you lived in,” Mooney said. “I know there’s a lot of talk about what county you live in and this and that. They care about — is someone really going to fight back against spending?”
Republicans are aiming keep the U.S. House seat in the 2nd District, which Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) has represented in Washington, D.C. since 2000. Capito is now seeking the Senate seat opened by Jay Rockefeller’s retirement.
In addition to Mooney, the other Republican candidates were Robert Lawrence Fluharty, an investigator from Charles Town; Steve Harrison, a former Kanawha County state senator; Charlotte Lane, a former PSC chair and former commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission; Jim Moss, a cost management specialist with Toyota Motors Manufacturing; Ken Reed, a pharmacist in Berkeley Springs and Ron Walters, Jr., an insurance and financial consultant in Charleston.
The 2nd District, which stretches from the Potomac River to the Ohio River, is made up of parts of 17 counties – Berkeley, Braxton, Calhoun, Clay, Hampshire, Hardy, Jackson, Jefferson, Kanawha, Lewis, Morgan, Pendleton, Putnam, Randolph, Roane, Upshur and Wirt.