West Virginia’s Primary Election is still seven months away, but a new poll shows Governor Jim Justice with a near insurmountable lead over Representative Alex Mooney in the race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.
The poll* of likely Republican and Independent West Virginia voters by the firm Fabrizio, Lee and Associates for the Justice campaign shows that if the election were held today, 62 percent would vote for Justice, while only 23 percent would vote for Mooney.
Justice’s strength is across the board. Here are some examples:
–On the question of whether voters have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of each person, Justice leads Mooney 72 percent to 38 percent. Only 20 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Justice, while 26 percent view Mooney unfavorably.
–That strong favorability rating carries over to Justice’s performance as Governor. A whopping 79 percent of Republican and Independent voters approve of the job Justice is doing, while only 18 percent disapprove.
–One of Mooney’s challenges is that he is not as well-known as Justice. The poll found that 36 percent of likely primary voters either have no opinion about him (23 percent) or have never heard of him (13 percent).
–Only 15 percent of likely voters say they have not yet decided who to vote for, so there is not much opportunity for Mooney to make up the large gap.
–Donald Trump is the presidential choice of 63 percent of Republican and Independent voters in the state if the Primary Election were held today. Ron DeSantis is a distant second at 10 percent with Nikki Haley at eight percent.
–Most of those Trump backers are also Justice voters. The poll finds that 67 percent of Trump voters, and even 54 percent of DeSantis voters, back Justice.
–Justice is the clear favorite of Republican and Independent voters across the ideological spectrum—very conservative, somewhat conservative and moderate voters all favor Justice over Mooney by thirty points or more.
The pollsters concluded: “Jim Justice is firmly in command of this race. The combination of his superior ratings, Mooney’s anemic scores, and Mooney’s inability to even be competitive in his home Congressional District (Justice 58 percent, Mooney 27 percent) underscores the magnitude of Justice’s advantage and Mooney’s very long odds.”
Granted, this is a poll from Justice’s campaign. However, it aligns closely with the MetroNews West Virginia Poll from August. Our poll of 400 Republican and Independent voters had Justice at 58 percent and Mooney with 26 percent and 16 percent undecided.
As Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” That is true in political races as well as baseball, but the polls show Alex Mooney has a lot of ground to make up before the race even becomes competitive.
*(METHODOLOGY STATEMENT: Fabrizio, Lee & Associates conducted a survey of 600 likely Republican primary voters in West Virginia from September 11-13, 2023. The interviews were split 30% live-operator landline/35% live-operator cell/35% SMS to web. Geography was matched to votes cast in previous GOP primary elections in West Virginia. Gender, age, race/ethnicity, party registration, and education, were matched to demographic profiles of likely voters based on the voter file and exit poll data. Respondents were randomly selected from lists of known previous GOP primary voters and newly registered voters eligible to vote in the GOP primary. The margin of sampling error at the 95% confidence interval is ±4.00%.)