Since becoming the carpetbagging junior Senator from Utah, Mitt Romney has dropped the entire charade that he was ever anything other than an establishment elitist.
But he’s reaching the point where he’s not even really just an establishment elitist anymore – he’s an outright water carrying member of the Democrat Party’s left-wing Senate majority.
And Mitt Romney just stabbed Republicans in the back yet again as he desperately begs for Democrats’ approval.
Country roads take me home
The West Virginia Senate race is shaping up to be one of the nation’s most fiercely contested elections of the 2024 cycle.
Late last week, West Virginia’s 72-year-old Governor Jim Justice announced that he would be running in the state’s Republican U.S. Senate Primary to vie for the opportunity to challenge incumbent Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV).
Senator Manchin is widely seen as one of the Democrat Senators most vulnerable for defeat in 2024, as the majority of the state’s voters lean heavily into the Republican column, even if he is admittedly one of the better Democrats in Washington, D.C.
For his part, Governor Justice was elected as a Democrat cut from the exact same cloth as Manchin, but he switched his party affiliation to Republican a few months into his first term, and professed his support for then-President Donald Trump – a clear move to appease the state’s voters who overwhelmingly supported the former President.
Nevertheless, he is establishment Republicans’ candidate of choice in the West Virginia Senate race – both Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) endorsed Justice during his campaign launch event, giving him the establishment elites’ stamp of approval.
But it seems there’s a bit of disagreement in the Republican ruling class elite circle of trust on which candidate to support in the state in 2024.
No, not of whether or not Republicans should back the recently reformed Democrat or the more conservative-minded option in Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) – who already filed to make a run for Manchin’s seat – but whether Republicans should support a Republican over the Democrat incumbent at all.
Democrats’ biggest ally
That’s right, none other than everyone’s old friend Senator Mitt Romney (RINO-UT) has indicated that he will not support his fellow Republican in name only in the West Virginia Senate race and will instead be backing Senator Manchin to help Democrats keep their majority.
“I won’t in any way campaign against my friend Joe Manchin,” Romney told his friends at CNN. “He’s a great friend, a good leader.”
Even Senator Graham, who was mentored and molded by the original RINO himself, the late Senator John McCain (R-AZ), knew when asked about the situation that despite Manchin undoubtedly being the best Democrat Senator America could hope for in this day and age, him being re-elected gives Democrats a far better chance at retaining their majority.
“I like Joe, but I think I’d rather have a Republican who’s going to be a more reliable vote,” Graham stated. “Joe Manchin is a wonderful fellow, I think Jim Justice is a winner. This is about control of the U.S. Senate, and that’s my focus here.”
Now, don’t get it twisted, Jim Justice is not only a terrible option for Republicans attempting to move Senator Manchin’s seat into their column – as mentioned, he’s the Democrat’s much larger twin politically, and he previously endorsed his 2018 Senate re-election bid – but he’s also just a terrible person.
At one point the only billionaire in the state of West Virginia, Justice has seen over $1.2 billion of his once nearly $1.7 billion fortune evaporate in just the past few years as banks attempt to garnish his wages to reclaim unpaid loans to many of his 111 companies, and lawsuits rack up for everything from a homeowners association dispute over a resort he owns to his companies not providing prescription drug coverage for nearly 300 retired employees contractually guaranteed to them for their years of service to his coal mining company.
Despite being pursued by banks, creditors, and suppliers for what is reported to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars and announcing his Senate run, Justice even still owes more than $2.6 million in debt from his 2020 re-election campaign as Governor.
Regardless, he’s the exact type of Republican the establishment flocks to – as evidenced by Senators Graham and Moore Capito’s enthusiastic endorsement of him – and he’s certainly the type of Republican Senator Romney has always lined up behind.
But now, Mitt Romney isn’t even pretending to be an establishment RINO anymore.
And he’s simply admitting for the world to see that he’d rather help Democrats keep the Senate majority than keep pretending to be a RINO.
Before It’s Banned will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story – before it’s banned.
