It is looking more and more likely that West Virginia will have a critical decision in the 2028 Republican gubernatorial primary. Current Governor Patrick Morrisey and former Governor Jim Justice will present voters with a choice about economic leadership and governing effectiveness—and their contrasting records provide important context for that debate.
The starting point matters. Jim Justice is from West Virginia.
Justice’s business interests included coal mines, farms, and the Greenbrier Resort. He has nearly universal name identification across the state and, as Governor, achieved one of the highest approval ratings of any governor in the nation. That popularity was earned through economic results and effective governance, but it also reflects his ability to work collaboratively with the Legislature—which is precisely why his economic agenda actually became law.
Justice has also cultivated an unusually close, personal working relationship with President Donald Trump, a relationship that could carry real weight with primary voters in a party where Trump’s support remains the single most powerful endorsement in West Virginia politics.
And Justice has recently put to rest one of the most persistent criticisms of his business record. In August 2026, his family closed a roughly half-billion-dollar joint venture bringing in New York investment firm Kennedy Lewis as a co-owner of The Greenbrier, resolving the debt troubles that had clouded the resort and removing a longstanding line of attack against him.
That strength matters for another reason: If Justice gets into the race, it will almost certainly clear the field of other Republican candidates, setting up a rare one-on-one matchup. Morrisey has never had to win a primary that way. His only two contested primaries—the six-candidate 2018 U.S. Senate race and the six-candidate 2024 gubernatorial primary—were both crowded fields in which he won with barely a third of the vote; his three Attorney General primaries, by contrast, went unopposed. He has no track record of winning a head-to-head Republican primary against a single strong opponent.
Governor Morrisey, by contrast, is from New Jersey. He spent years as a federal lobbyist in DC, and his wife continues her role as a federal lobbyist. More significantly, his tenure has been far more partisan—especially impacting the Republican party’s relationship with independent voters—a bloc that has been core to Republican success for decades.
For years, independents voted in West Virginia Republican primaries and supported Republican candidates by a margin of 2-to-1. That represented a genuine cross-party coalition built on shared values and economic interests. Governor Morrisey led the charge to close the Republican primary to independent voters—effectively telling a loyal voting bloc that they were no longer welcome. That decision alone generated deep resentment, which resulted in the Independents teaming up with the Democrats to defeat the Republican judicial candidates in this year’s primary election.
But it was compounded by another choice.
Governor Morrisey raised several million dollars for out-of-state political organizations that ran false and negative advertisements against pro-jobs Republican candidates in this year’s primary. In other words, he directed resources toward attacking fellow Republicans—candidates focused on economic development and job creation—while those attacks came from outside West Virginia and relied on misleading information.
The results were telling: The State Senate candidates Governor Morrisey personally backed and financed collectively won less than half of the total votes cast in their primary races. Even within a closed primary electorate made up entirely of Republican voters, his hand-picked slate struggled to win a majority—a warning sign about his standing with the party’s own base, independent of how general-election voters may view him.
The consequences are now measurable beyond the primary electorate as well. Recent polling shows that independents—who once supported Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin—may now oppose Republican legislative candidates by a 2-to-1 ratio. This is not a marginal shift. This is a fundamental realignment of the state’s political landscape, directly attributable to the Governor’s decisions.
From an electoral perspective, this represents a significant structural problem heading into the general election. Add up the pieces: his own hand-picked candidates couldn’t win a majority of the vote in Republican primaries, independents may now oppose Republican legislative candidates by 2-to-1, and Morrisey draws essentially no crossover support from Democrats, who have little reason to back a governor who has built his career on hardline partisan positioning rather than the kind of coalition-building that made Justice popular across party lines.
A Governor who cannot achieve 25 percent support among independent voters, is struggling to hold even half of his own party, and has no meaningful inroads with Democrats has damaged not just his own position—he has created headwinds for many Republican legislators in purple districts in November.
On the positive side for Governor Morrisey, he has announced tens of billions of dollars in new investment over recent months, with the vast majority coming from data center projects. These announcements will eventually be very good for West Virginia. The state should welcome new capital investment and the potential for long-term economic diversification. But here is the critical question: When will voters see the tangible results?
None of these projects will be substantially complete before the May 2028 primary. There will be relatively few construction jobs realized, no additional tax revenue flowing to state coffers, and no demonstrated economic impact from these announcements before May of 2028. Voters will be asked to elect a Governor based on what might happen, not on what will eventually happen. Meanwhile, West Virginia has lost approximately 10,000 jobs since Morrisey took office. Many will say that the state cannot wait for future promises when it needs economic results today.
In terms of governing track record, the comparison is instructive.
During his tenure as Governor, Justice grew West Virginia’s economy while exercising fiscal discipline, especially during his second term. He controlled government spending—keeping spending growth essentially flat even as inflation and demands on state government increased. It also created space for what became the largest tax cut in West Virginia history, all while having a very conservative voting record, especially on pro-life and 2nd amendment issues.
Justice demonstrated that you grow an economy in two ways: by creating conditions that attract investment and jobs, and by allowing working families and businesses to keep more of what they earn. He did both simultaneously—growing economic activity and returning tax relief to taxpayers—while controlling the size and cost of government. Critically, he had the political standing with the Legislature to make it happen. His high favorability allowed him to build governing coalitions that functioned—that actually delivered results.
It is also well known that Governor Morrisey is an effective political operative. He raises substantial resources and runs disciplined, aggressive campaigns. That network extends well beyond West Virginia: Club for Growth President David McIntosh has already pledged that his organization is “prepared to do what it takes to help him win again,” a signal that national conservative money will pour into the state to defend Morrisey regardless of his standing at home.
These are genuine political assets, but it remains to be seen if outside money and a disciplined operation will be enough to overcome the self-inflicted damage that has been done to his own approval rating.
