What West Virginia Governor Jim Justice Plots Ahead of 2024: Could Joe Manchin Land in the Crosshairs?

On Thursday, Governor Jim Justice of West Virginia will make a big announcement at his luxurious hotel. This could have an impact nationally. It is also his 72nd birthday!

Governor Justice had previously used the opportunity of President Donald Trump’s visit to reveal he switched to the Republican Party. This event may announced that he plans on running for U.S. Senate, which is currently held by Democrat Joe Manchin.

Governor Justice can’t run for a third term because of state law, so he has been answering questions about whether or not he will try to become a Senator. If he does choose to join the race, it could be quite a difficult competition between three well-known politicians from the same state.

Senator Manchin has said that he’ll decide what the future holds for him by December. He already has a lot of money, with over $9.7 million in cash. If Manchin plans to keep his job, it is likely going to be a challenging situation since this would be his toughest race yet as he has had at least 30 years of experience in West Virginia politics. It was never going to be simple either way.

Manchin is a Democratic senator from West Virginia who might get reelected in 2024. He’s the only Democrat who was elected to have a state office in West Virgina since 2017 when Justice changed his political party.

Justice is thinking of running for the Senate in 2024 and if he does, he would be up against U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney. Mooney quickly decided to join the Senate race shortly after winning his fifth term in the House last November. Meanwhile, attorney general Patrick Morrisey wants to become governor next year since he lost to Manchin in 2018.

No one has said they are running against Joe Manchin yet. But Bernie Sanders, a prominent politician with different beliefs than Manchin, suggested he would support someone else who wanted to run against Manchin in the next election. This is because Manchin often makes decisions that go against what President Joe Biden wants – like not supporting Biden’s plans for social spending.

West Virginia’s Governor, Justice, took advantage of President Trump’s popularity when he was first elected. Seven months after beginning his job as governor, Justice switched from a Democratic party to the Republican Party, and made an announcement whilst standing next to Trump. He told Manchin about this switch the day before but didn’t tell anyone else on his own staff. Manchin said that he was disappointed by this news.

Jim Justice and Joe Manchin have been talking bad things about each other since 2019. Justice said that Manchin was a “Washington liberal” and he blamed him for the poor condition of their state’s roads. Manchin responded by saying that this comment is just typical of Jim, as he likes to blame everyone for what he didn’t do.

Justice is known for his strange and over-excited way of speaking. Whenever he attends an important event, he takes his pet dog Babydog with him. At one of his 2022 State of the State addresses, Justice even showed Babydog’s behind to the cameras as a message towards Bette Midler, who had previously said something bad about West Virginia people. He was basically telling her “you can kiss my dog’s bum!”

The legislators in the room cheered for him.

Justice always brings up a saying he likes to tell people: “Being proud of where you come from is important”.

In January 2023, Justice made another suggestion to reduce taxes for the state’s citizens. Justice was encouraged to either let it go or take a big step forward.

The governor said he’ll make a big splash in the pool and promised that their plan, called the West Virginia tsunami, will be heard all over the world. After lawmakers agreed to reduce taxes by 21.25%, the governor signed it into law in March.

Justice bought the Greenbrier resort, which was 2,630 hectares and had 6,500 acres, for $20.1 million. He built a bunker casino below the hotel with 721 rooms in just one year. He also held a PGA Tour golf event at the Old White TPC for ten years.

Justice became really rich by owning a lot of farms and coal mines. He was worth $1.7 billion, but in 2021 he was taken off the list of super rich people from Forbes Magazine. He says that a bank from the UK tricked him into agreeing to pay back $700 million for loans his companies made.

Justice’s businesses had a lot of bad things happening, like they had to pay millions to the government in fines and were being sued because they did not deliver coal, pay back taxes, nor help with costs for employees’ benefits.

When asked how he handles money in his companies, Justice said he “doesn’t sit on a pot of gold”.

During his first years as governor, he spent most of his time at his home in Lewisburg instead of living at the government seat in Charleston. This made a politician unhappy and they even sued him because they thought he was only being a “part-time governor”. The case ended in 2021 with Justice agreeing to give up his Lewisburg house and live full-time in Charleston.

Right after being chosen as the winner of an election, Justice said he will keep coaching the female basketball team from Greenbrier East. He’s been doing this for more than twenty years and the team even won a big tournament in 2012!

We just don’t know yet if he’ll carry on coaching if he is elected to be a US Senator.