Gene Puskar/Associated Press
West Virginia Republican Rep. David McKinley has been pushed out of Congress, losing a primary battle to fellow GOP incumbent Rep. Alex Mooney.
McKinley, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change, is the first incumbent to lose a primary reelection in the 2022 midterm cycle. The intraparty fight happened because West Virginia lost a congressional seat in the reapportionment process, and McKinley and Mooney were drawn into the 2nd District together.
The race largely centered on the respective candidates’ fealty to former President Donald Trump, who enjoys broad support in the GOP and won West Virginia by the widest margin of any state in the 2020 election.
Trump endorsed Mooney, who has vocally pushed false claims that Trump’s loss in the 2020 election was due to widespread voting fraud. The former president frequently called McKinley a “RINO” — Republican In Name Only — and faulted him for cooperating with Democrats while falsely accusing him of backing the Green New Deal, among other allegations.
Mooney has voted against legislation Trump opposed, like last year’s bill to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
In a joint appearance last week on West Virginia MetroNews’ “Talkline,” Mooney called the commission bid a “total...
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