Capito making final campaign push before primary

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, right, greets supporters at a campaign event Thursday at the Parkersburg Art Center. (Photo by Steven Allen Adams)

PARKERSBURG – With early voting ending Saturday and the primary election on Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito is making her way across West Virginia to get out the vote for her own re-election campaign and like-minded candidates on the ballot.

Capito, R-W.Va., was at the Parkersburg Art Center Thursday morning, campaigning with former Ritchie County Del. Jason Harshbarger, the GOP primary challenger to state Sen. Trenton Barnhart, R-Pleasants. The winner in the second of two 3rd Senatorial District contests on the ballot will serve the remaining term of former Sen. Donna Boley, R-Pleasants.

Capito has spent the week traversing the state both for official Senate events and campaign appearances during a break in action on Capitol Hill. She is in a six-person GOP primary contest as she seeks her third six-year term in the Senate.

“I feel really good,” Capito said. “It’s been nice to have the week where I didn’t need to go to Washington to have the week here. We’ve really spread out all throughout the state.”

The state’s senior U.S. senator, Capito is fourth in the Senate Republican majority leadership’s chain of command, chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee for the departments of Labor, Education, Health and Human Services, and other independent agencies.

Capito has served in Congress since taking office in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2001. She won election to the Senate in 2014, succeeding the retiring Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller and becoming the first woman elected to the Senate from West Virginia.

She won re-election in 2020, becoming the first Republican to do so in the Senate since 1907 and carrying all 55 counties. Capito was endorsed last year for re-election by President Donald Trump and has the support of Vice President J.D. Vance.

Despite her added responsibilities in the Senate, Capito said she returns to West Virginia often to meet with constituents and stay connected with the needs of residents. She said her attentiveness to the needs of West Virginians, her seniority in Senate leadership and her support by Trump should all be checkmarks for those deciding to vote for her.

“Every stop I make, I kind of remind everybody the relationship that we’ve had over the years and how I know local issues,” Capito said. “I think it’s important to remind everybody about the relationship, talk about President Trump’s endorsement and my conservative record, and how I want to go back. Because I’m in a position now where I’m chairman of (a) committee, chairman of subcommittees, and I’m on the leadership team, where I really could be more influential than ever.”

Capito’s conservative bona fides are being challenged this year by state Sen. Tom Willis, R-Berkeley, Alexander Gaasurud of Parkersburg, Janet McNulty of Martinsburg, Bryan McKinney of Inwood and David Purkey of Fairmont. Willis, an attorney and West Virginia National Guard officer who chairs the state Senate’s Judiciary Committee, has accused Capito of not being conservative enough. But Capito said she’s been representing conservatism in Congress for more than 25 years.

“I started the Republican ascendancy before being Republican was cool when I went to Washington in 2001 as the first Republican (from West Virginia in the House) in over 20 years, and now the first (Republican) senator in 50 years,” Capito said. “I think I carry the conservative credentials as well as anybody.”

Capito pointed to her endorsement by West Virginians for Life, her lifetime A rating from the National Rifle Association, her support over the years for lower taxes, her efforts in the Senate to undo former President Joe Biden’s regulations on fossil fuels and incentives for green energy projects, and recent votes to prohibit transgender girls and women from participating in sports with biological girls and women.

“I’ve always been at the forefront of all those things,” she said. “But the biggest thing I think I can do is create an economic policy where people can really keep more of their own money, increase their wages, buy a home and live in the communities they want to live in.”

West Virginia’s GOP primary this year is open only to registered Republicans, with Republican candidates up and down the ballot challenging each other on who is more conservative. That battle has played out in endorsements by major Republican leaders, including Capito and Gov. Patrick Morrisey backing opposing candidates.

In the 3rd Senatorial District GOP primary, Morrisey endorsed Barnhart, whom he appointed earlier this year to succeed Boley. Barnhart is a banker in St. Marys. Capito endorsed

Harshbarger, a businessman and long-time natural gas industry executive.

Capito said she expects to have a large amount of support heading into the closed Republican primary, with many independents and conservative Democrats switching to the Republican Party to vote in this year’s primary.

“I do believe that we should have a big and broad party, and I want to keep it that way and I don’t want to see it narrowed down,” Capito said. “But with so many party switchers, I think the party really is as big and broad as it’s always been.”

With additional campaign stops scheduled over the next several days leading up to next Tuesday’s primary, Capito said it was important to get the word out about her campaign and encourage voter turnout.

“I’ve been honored by the service that I’ve been able to achieve over the years,” Capito said. “A strong voice in Washington is important for West Virginia, and I have the ability to be the strongest voice as a Republican, a conservative voice, that we’ve had in a century, probably.

“I think people know me and they trust me, and they know I’m a hard worker and I get around the state,” she said. “I live and breathe West Virginia, and I want to go back and represent West Virginia in D.C.”

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com.

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