West Virginians already carry one of the heaviest economic burdens in America. Fewer of us work than in almost any other state. Those who do work, earn wages that lag the rest of the country, electric bills among the highest in the region, and the most expensive private health insurance costs in the nation.
For 84 years, single-party rule from Charleston made all of that worse. But when conservatives took control of the state legislature in 2014, something changed. Real reforms took hold. Our economy grew. People began moving to West Virginia for jobs, not away from it. Lawsuit abuse declined. And rising revenues, paired with long-overdue spending discipline, made possible the largest tax cut in state history.
Then outside money arrived… and the progress stopped.
In the 2024 election, an out-of-state special interest group spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to remove the State Senate President – not over any West Virginia issue, but to send a message to our federal delegation over prescription drug policy in Washington. West Virginia voters were collateral damage in someone else’s political fight.
The legislature that followed had a completely different agenda. Not jobs. Not the cost of living. Not roads or schools or making health insurance more affordable. Instead, session after session focused on federal proxy battles that few West Virginians asked for and even fewer benefit from. The practical policy work that was finally moving our state forward was stalled.
A good recent example of how things seem to have stopped progressing, largely because of weak leadership in the Senate, was seen in the 2026 session. The WV House released a “Jobs First – Opportunity Everywhere” agenda and then passed a bill to form Team-WV, a non-profit, non-political organization modeled after the highly successful Jobs Ohio program. This major economic development, pro-jobs bill was killed by the WV Senate.
Now, as the 2026 Republican primary approaches, those same outside groups have already spent over a million dollars in just a few weeks, protecting the senators who advanced their agenda instead of ours.
My family has watched this playbook before, during recent congressional races. Organizations that no West Virginian has ever heard of, or belongs to, spending millions to shape our elections from the outside. But this cycle they’ve added something new: they’re not just spending, they’re lying. Lying about West Virginia candidates because they’re afraid of a legislature that will actually put this state first.
I live in the Northern Panhandle so I see firsthand the false attacks on Joe Eddy. They question his conservative ideology and support for the President’s agenda.
For example, the School Freedom Fund has distributed misleading direct mail pieces to support Laura Wakim Chapman’s campaign. One insinuates Joe voted for new taxes in 2017 and another that he aligns with Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.
Joe has not held elected office but has been such a strong supporter of President Trump’s policies he has met with the President many times in the Oval Office and at meetings of the National Association of Manufacturers to discuss strategies for increasing domestic manufacturing.
The connection is simple, and West Virginians deserve to hear it plainly: when outside groups buy your legislature, you don’t get a legislature working on your problems. You get one working on theirs.
That’s why I founded the Mountaineer Freedom Alliance. We are raising money primarily from West Virginians and West Virginia businesses, recruiting candidates who are long-time citizens of West Virginia, focused on the issues that actually affect West Virginia families, and committed to fighting back against the flood of outside money distorting our democracy.
Pay close attention to who is trying to buy this primary. Ask what they’ve done for West Virginia jobs, West Virginia families, and West Virginia’s future. And reject any candidate who is working for them instead of for you.
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David H. McKinley of Wheeling is the founder of Mountaineer Freedom Alliance and an eighth generation West Virginian. He is the principal owner of McKinley Carter Wealth Services, McKinley Architecture and Engineering, Omni Strategic Technologies, Beyond Marketing, Willow Glen Capital, and McKinley Properties. Among his roles in the community, he serves as chair of the board of governors at West Liberty University and on the Wheeling Park Commission overseeing Oglebay Park and Wheeling Park.
