2022

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — One contender thinks West Virginia voters will see the value of federal spending on badly needed infrastructure in one of the nation’s poorest regions. The other is betting that loyalty to former President Donald Trump will matter more.

The May 10 primary in West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District between Republican Reps. Alex Mooney and David McKinley will be a barometer of Trump’s clout in a state that wholeheartedly embraced him in two presidential elections.

The two incumbents were pitted against each other after population losses cost West Virginia a U.S. House seat. The divergent paths they’ve chosen as congressmen could give Republican candidates nationally an early sense of what resonates with hardcore conservative voters in 2022.

The contest comes during an intensifying stretch of the midterm election season as Trump aims to solidify his influence over the GOP. His preferred candidate in this week’s Ohio Republican primary, JD Vance, easily dispatched other rivals, but potentially tougher tests for the former president lie ahead this month in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.

Enthusiasm for Trump remains high in West Virginia, where he prevailed in every county in 2016 and 2020, winning more than two-thirds of the state’s voters. But West Virginians are also desperate to see upgrades in a state that consistently ranks among the worst in the nation for infrastructure. The state’s rugged landscape is rife with failing bridges and crumbling roads, and thousands of its citizens live without access to safe drinking water or internet.

Trump has made his position clear, endorsing Mooney on the day President Joe Biden signed the infrastructure bill into law. He’s repeatedly condemned McKinley and 12 other House Republicans for voting with the Democrats for Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure law, saying, “Republicans who voted for Democrat longevity should be ashamed of themselves.”

Mooney, a 50-year-old former Maryland state senator who moved to West Virginia to run for Congress in 2014 and is West Virginia’s first Hispanic congressman, has doubled down on Trump’s attacks. He called McKinley a RINO, or “Republican in Name Only,” and a sellout who betrayed his constituents. But the 75-year-old McKinley, a seventh-generation West Virginian and a civil engineer by trade, says the state’s infrastructure problems are too severe for anyone to be “playing party politics.”

“There’s no question that was the right vote,” he said, noting the state’s “D” infrastructure grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers. “West Virginia was rated last. Any commonsense, reasonable person would say, ‘You got a problem, fix it.’ I think it would have been a betrayal to do otherwise.”

The infrastructure vote earned McKinley the endorsement of Republican Gov. Jim Justice, a fervent Trump supporter who said his infrastructure vote took “courage,” as well as other government officials vying for infrastructure improvements, some of which are starting to take shape on the ground in West Virginia.

Paul Howe, president of the Clarksburg Water Board in Harrison County in northern West Virginia, called McKinley’s infrastructure bill vote “tremendous” and said his community desperately needs to replace lead service lines.

In July, the municipal water system was placed under an administrative order by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after three children were diagnosed with high lead blood levels. A subsequent study found that 4,000 customers have lead service lines. Replacing them would cost an estimated $52 million or more — a large burden on any small city.

Howe said McKinley worked with city officials to provide residents with bottled water and filters and complete an engineering study on replacing the lines. The congressman has traveled to Clarksburg repeatedly to tour the water plant and strategize about how to apply for infrastructure money.

Howe said he likes both congressmen, but given the circumstances, Mooney’s attacks on McKinley for his infrastructure vote helped make the choice clear.

“It’s hard to defend that,” he said. “If the government can do one thing right, it’s reinvest in infrastructure.”

Still, many of the infrastructure improvements that are expected to take place over the next few years won’t be visible to West Virginians right away. Meanwhile, Trump’s popularity in the state remains palpable.

“If you drive through West Virginia today, you’d think the (2020) election is still going on,” Mooney said in an interview. “There’s Trump flags everywhere. Trump signs — anti-Biden signs. It means a lot to voters.”

Voter Ron Howell, a manager for a lumber company from Buckhannon, said his decision to support Mooney is “50% Trump” and 50% McKinley’s decision to vote with Democrats.

“He supported President Donald Trump, whom I voted for and would again in a heartbeat,” he said. “I feel like McKinley is a RINO and supports much of the left’s agenda, and I don’t want that for my state.”

During their time representing West Virginia in Congress during Trump’s last two years of presidency, Mooney and McKinley voted together 87% of the time. But Mooney says there’s a consistent pattern of McKinley voting with Democrats on big votes, including his support for the creation of a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

In Harrison County, where Clarksburg is, 20-year-old Drew Harbert said he thinks that will lose McKinley more voters than supporting infrastructure.

“I don’t think people take it very kindly that he voted for that,” said Harbert, a Fairmont State University student and president of the Harrison County Young Republicans. “I think that will definitely hurt McKinley probably more than anything else that he’s done.”

Harbert said he knows infrastructure repairs are needed in the state, but said he has serious concerns about the rising national debt and believes it was irresponsible for McKinley to vote for a bill with such a big price tag.

Harbert said Trump’s endorsement bolstered his decision to back Mooney, but it was far from the only reason. He wanted a candidate who will defend gun owners’ rights. McKinley has supported red-flag laws, which permit law enforcement or family members to petition a court to remove firearms from someone who presents a possible danger to themselves or others.

McKinley, who says he voted with Trump over 90% of the time when he was in office, said he believes Mooney has misled voters about his vote on the infrastructure bill. He cited a Mooney campaign ad that attacks him for “backing Biden for a trillion-dollar spending spree,” but mentions infrastructure only in printed text.

Howell, the lumber company manager, said he thought McKinley voted for Biden’s Build Back Better plan — a proposal McKinley vehemently opposed — and initially cited that vote as a reason for supporting Mooney. After doing more research on McKinley’s voting record, he said the congressman voted the way he would have most of the time. But he said he couldn’t forgive McKinley for his Jan. 6 and infrastructure votes.

“I wish we were in different times and I could be nonpartisan, but the Democrats have made that impossible,” he said.

Nate Orders, a bridge-building contractor who is president of the Contractors Association of West Virginia, said there’s a lot of hypocrisy in criticisms of the infrastructure bill and the Republicans who voted for it. Trump supporters were on board with infrastructure spending when the former president introduced his $2 trillion proposal, which Democrats blocked.

“If Alex Mooney wins, it’s another sign that our democracy continues down the road to dysfunction, where all that matters is party politics,” he said. “If David McKinley wins, it shows me a little bit of hope that even though we can agree or disagree on some big issues, we can also agree on the things that really make a difference to Americans.”

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics.

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This story has been corrected to show the name of the organization is the Contractors Association of West Virginia, not the West Virginia Contractors Association.

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By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion that would end the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion could imperil other freedoms related to marriage, sexuality and family life including birth control and same-sex nuptials, according to legal experts.

The draft ruling, disclosed in a leak that prompted Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday to launch an investigation, would uphold a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized the procedure nationwide.

The draft’s legal reasoning, if adopted by the court when it issues its eventual ruling by the end of June, could threaten other rights that Americans take for granted in their personal lives, according to University of Texas law professor Elizabeth Sepper, an expert in healthcare law and religion.

“The low-hanging fruit is contraception, probably starting with emergency contraception, and same-sex marriage is also low-hanging fruit in that it was very recently recognized by the Supreme Court,” Sepper said.

The court’s 6-3 conservative majority, including Alito, has become increasingly assertive on a range of issues. The court confirmed the authenticity of the leaked draft but called it preliminary.

The Roe decision, one of the court’s most important and contentious rulings of the 20th century, recognized that the right to personal privacy under the U.S. Constitution protects a woman’s ability to terminate her pregnancy.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences,” Alito wrote in the draft, adding that Roe and a 1992 decision that reaffirmed it have only “deepened division” in society.

According to Alito, the right to abortion recognized in Roe must be overturned because it is not valid under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment right to due process.

Abortion is among a number of fundamental rights that the court over many decades recognized at least in part as what are called “substantive” due process liberties, including contraception in 1965, interracial marriage in 1967 and same-sex marriage in 2015.

Though these rights are not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, they are linked to personal privacy, autonomy, dignity and equality. Conservative critics of the substantive due process principle have said it improperly lets unelected justices make policy choices better left to legislators.

Alito reasoned in the draft that substantive due process rights must be “deeply rooted” in U.S. history and tradition and essential to the nation’s “scheme of ordered liberty.” Abortion, he said, is not, and rejected arguments that it is essential for privacy and bodily autonomy reasons.

‘SOCIAL PROGRESS’

Like abortion, other personal rights including contraception and same-sex marriage may be found by conservative justices to fall outside this framework involving rights “deeply rooted” in American history, scholars noted.

“This was considered social progress – we were changing as a society and different things became important and became part of what one cherished,” said Carol Sanger, an expert in reproductive rights at Columbia Law School.

In the draft, Alito sought to distinguish abortion from other rights because it, unlike the others, destroys what the Roe ruling called “potential life.”

“Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,” Alito wrote.

Sepper said that Alito is “not particularly convincing because he doesn’t do the work to distinguish those cases in a meaningful way.” She added: “It’s a really sweeping opinion. It doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the abortion right.”

Alito’s opinion resembles his dissent in the court’s same-sex marriage ruling in which he said the 14th Amendment’s due process promise protects only rights deeply rooted in America’s history and tradition.

“And it is beyond dispute that the right to same-sex marriage is not among those rights,” Alito wrote in his 2015 dissent.

Some conservative commentators have suggested that Alito has provided a road map for future attempts to eliminate other guaranteed liberties. Other legal scholars doubt that there is either a willingness on the court or in legislatures to eliminate other rights.

“On interracial marriage, contraception and same-sex marriage, for one reason or another there is no likelihood the court is going to revisit those decisions,” Northwestern University law professor John McGinnis said.

The fact that Americans have relied on the same-sex marriage decision to plan and invest in their lives and relationships makes it unlikely that the justices will overturn it, McGinnis said.

McGinnis added, “No state legislature is going to get rid of contraception. That’s fanciful. And no state legislature is going to get rid of interracial marriage.”

George Mason University constitutional law professor Ilya Somin said Alito’s ruling could make it unlikely the court would recognize due process protections in new areas such as transgender rights.

“But on the whole its effect on due process rights is likely to be minor,” Somin said.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)

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The primary elections in Ohio and Indiana on Tuesday stood as the first real test of former President Donald Trump’s status as the Republican Party kingmaker — and he passed.

Takeaways from the races:

TRUMP’S CLOUT

Trump’s chosen candidate, “Hillbilly Elegy” author and one-time investment banker JD Vance, won the crowded Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Ohio, giving Trump a strong beginning to primary season.

Vance, former State Treasurer Josh Mandel, businessman Mike Gibbons and former state GOP chair Jane Timken all vied for Trump’s endorsement, increasingly adopting language that mirrored the former president’s bombastic, populist style. In the end, Trump went with Vance, who in 2016 said the celebrity businessman could become “America’s Hitler” but has since become an avid supporter.

Vance wooed the former president by echoing his bashing of immigrants, skepticism about U.S. military involvement overseas — even in support of Ukraine — and lies about Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election. Lagging in the polls when he received Trump’s endorsement three weeks ago, Vance made it a centerpiece of his closing pitch and vaulted ahead of his rivals.

Vance will face Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan in November’s general election as they compete for the seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman. Trump won Ohio by 8 percentage points in 2020, and the state has swung to the right under his influence. Replacing Portman, a traditional Republican and no fan of Trump’s, with Vance would move the Senate further in the former president’s direction.

POWER OF ELECTION DENIAL

Ohio’s Republican secretary of state, Frank LaRose, easily survived a primary challenge from John Adams, who denies that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election and ran as a full-throated skeptic of modern voting systems.

But Ohio’s Republican primary still shows the power that Trump’s election lies have on his party’s base. An AP-NORC poll last year found two-thirds of Republicans believe Biden was not legitimately elected, even though the contest was free of any significant voter fraud and repeated investigations, audits and court cases have disproved Trump’s claims.

LaRose initially said the 2020 election was secure and accurate, but as the primary neared, he began to echo some of Trump’s talking points. He claimed there were problems in other states and touted his office’s work to combat voter fraud.

Trump endorsed LaRose, a longtime supporter. Since Ohio wasn’t a battleground and Trump won the state easily, the incumbent secretary of state never got on his bad side in the days after he 2020 loss.

In contrast, in swing state Michigan — one of the states Trump claimed to win in 2020, even though he actually lost it — Trump endorsed an election conspiracy theorist, Kristina Karamo. She won the GOP nomination for secretary of state last month. Plenty of other Trump-backed election deniers are competing in upcoming Republican primaries.

RESILIENT GOVERNORS

Trump and his populist supporters have shaken up their party and pushed its incumbents in Trump’s direction in many places, but one weak point so far are governor’s mansions.

Ohio was the clearest example of that. Trump castigated Republican Gov. Mike DeWine for his strict coronavirus policies in 2020, but DeWine cruised to victory in the primary. He will face Democrat Nan Whaley in the general election. Whaley, the former mayor of Dayton, is the first woman nominated by a major party for Ohio governor.

Ohio is not the only place where a GOP governor is well positioned against a primary challenger. Idaho’s Brad Little has a strong fundraising advantage against his conservative opponent, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin. In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp is a strong favorite against former Sen. David Perdue, whom Trump recruited to punish Kemp for not supporting his election lies and for certifying Biden’s victory in the state.

Governors are helped by their incumbency, the wide range of popular conservative policies they can announce and federal coronavirus relief that has taken the pressure off state budgets. DeWine, for example, outraised his foes by millions of dollars and was able to benefit from, for example, the chip firm Intel’s announcement it will invest $20 million in the state.

DeWine got another boost because his opposition was split between former U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci and farmer Joe Blystone. Trump didn’t make an endorsement in the race.

DEMOCRATS SPURN THE LEFT, AGAIN

In the Cleveland area, Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown trounced former state Sen. Nina Turner in yet another battle between the party’s establishment and progressive wings.

Turner co-chaired Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential primary campaign and lost to Brown in last year’s special election for the seat after its previous occupant, Marcia Fudge, became Biden’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Turner ran again, hoping that the district might be more amenable to her approach after it was redrawn to include more Democratic areas.

No such luck. Brown’s easy victory is a reminder that the left has a very uneven track record in Democratic primaries, notching a few high-profile wins like that of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York City, but mostly a long string of losses. Trump may have changed Republican primaries, but Democratic ones still tilt toward the same establishment that has run the party for decades.

IN INDIANA, INCUMBENCY BEATS ‘LIBERTY’

Legislative races in Indiana showed the power of incumbency, even amid rising conservative anger.

Activists infuriated by the state’s coronavirus restrictions organized roughly two dozen so-called liberty candidates to take on lawmakers in the GOP primary whom they saw as too supportive of Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb’s public health measures. The picture was mixed on Tuesday night, with several of those races uncalled.

But the challengers were repeatedly coming up short taking on incumbent legislators. One incumbent targeted as too close to the party establishment lost his primary, but so did an incumbent who encouraged the liberty candidates. And in at least 10 other races, the liberty candidates fell short.

It’s a reminder that, even in Trump’s GOP, conservative insurgents don’t always have an easy path against incumbents.

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics

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