Gov. Justice, Thrasher woo supporters, voters
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CHARLESTON -- With Gov. Jim Justice bringing in the son of the President of the United States Thursday, and Justice's former commerce secretary spending money on airwaves, the two richest candidates in the Republican primary for governor are working on getting support.
Justice held a fundraiser in Charleston Thursday night featuring Donald Trump Jr. The event was billed as a celebration of West Virginia's 156th birthday and attendees spent $250 per person and $500 per couple to attend.
The fundraiser invitation said the event would also feature the entire state Republican congressional delegation. According to sources, Reps. David McKinley, Alex Mooney and Carol Miller were unable to attend due to needing to stay in Washington for votes.
U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., also was unable to attend.
House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, was listed as a special guest on the invitation, but the speaker's office was unable to confirm whether Hanshaw attended.
Justice and the Trump family have a long-standing relationship. Justice, who was elected a Democrat in 2016, switched parties nearly two years ago. The party switch was announced at a Trump rally in Huntington.
Trump Jr. has frequently gone hunting and fishing with Justice.
President Trump made three trips to West Virginia during the 2018 midterm elections to stump for candidates for Congress. Trump Jr. also came to the state with his girlfriend and former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle to campaign for Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who lost a U.S. Senate race in 2018 when he took on Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.
Justice also is benefiting from Trump's help for his campaign. Trump 2020 staffers Bill Stepien and Justin Clark joined the campaign as advisers in April. They were joined soon after by Mike Lukach, a Trump campaign veteran who ran the 2018 campaign of Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey. Lukach serves as Justice's campaign manager.
When the fundraiser was first released June 7, it did not include Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, after behind-the-scenes disagreements between Justice and Carmichael regarding the state Senate's education reform bill spilled into the public view. The Senate's Republican political action committee has spent the last two weeks attacking Justice for not fully supporting the Senate's public charter school program.
That bill is now dead after the House passed its own education omnibus bill -- House Bill 206 -- Wednesday with a scaled-down charter program allowing three charter schools every three years. Both Justice and Carmichael have released statements supporting the Hhouse bill.
The Justice campaign did not provide comment for this report.
While Justice was fundraising, fellow Republican candidate for governor Woody Thrasher was spending more money on TV and radio ads. On Thursday, Thrasher's campaign spent $4,004 on ads on the WAJR radio network and WDTV in North Central West Virginia through the end of June.
The Thrasher campaign announced its first ad buys June 10 on TV and radio stations across the state, calling it "one of the earliest campaign ad buys in West Virginia political history."
"Our problems are too big for a part-time governor," Thrasher said in the ad. "We need to be focused on more jobs, fixing our roads and protecting our conservative values. It's time, West Virginia; it's time to go to work."
Thrasher is the co-founder of Thrasher Engineering with his father. The company now employs 700 people in West Virginia and other states. He served as secretary of the Department of Commerce under Justice until June 2018 when Justice asked for Thrasher's resignation due to the agency's poor handling of disaster recovery funds. He switched from Democrat to Republican in April to challenge Justice in the Republican primary May 12, 2020.
Justice will also face former Republican House member and Berkeley County native Mike Folk.