Redistricting and West Virginia’s shrinking population forced the state’s Republican Legislature to pit McKinley, a six-term Republican with a pragmatic bent, against Mooney, who has served four terms marked more by conservative rhetoric than legislative achievements. McKinley has the backing of much of the state’s power structure, including its governor, Jim Justice, and, in recent days, its Democratic senator, Joe Manchin. Mooney, however, may have the endorsement that matters most: Trump’s — in a state that gave the former president 69% of the vote in 2020. Neither candidate could exactly be called a moderate Republican, but McKinley thought his primary bid would be framed around his technocratic accomplishments, his support for the bipartisan infrastructure bill that was co-written by Manchin and his attentiveness to a state used to — and still in need of — federal attention. On Thursday, he and Justice were in the state’s northern panhandle, not for a campaign rally but to visit a high-tech metal alloy plant. Mooney’s campaign does not go for nuance. His is built around one thing: Trump’s endorsement. The former president sided with Mooney after McKinley voted for the infrastructure bill as well as for legislation to create a bipartisan commission to examine the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — legislation that was filibustered by Republicans in the Senate. “Alex is the only candidate in this race that has my complete and total endorsement,” Trump says in a radio advertisement blanketing the state. The former president goes on to blast McKinley as a “RINO” — “Republican in name only” — “who supported the fake infrastructure bill that wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on the Green New Deal” and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “phony narrative” on Jan 6 that went “against the interests of West Virginia.” A television advertisement also featuring Trump tells viewers that Mooney defended the former president from Pelosi’s “Jan 6 witch hunt.” Sensing that any high-minded campaign on accomplishments was simply not going to work, McKinley has hit back at “Maryland Mooney” as a carpetbagger — he once headed the Maryland Republican Party and ran for office in New Hampshire — who is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for charges that he improperly used campaign dollars and staff for personal gain. Most remarkably, McKinley has turned to a Democrat, Manchin, for his closing argument. “Alex Mooney has proven he’s all about Alex Mooney, but West Virginians know that David McKinley is all about us,” Manchin says in a McKinley campaign ad. He also calls Mooney a liar for suggesting that McKinley supported the far-reaching climate change and social welfare bill that Manchin killed. All of this is somewhat extraordinary in a state where federal largess has made politicians like the now-deceased Sen. Robert Byrd and his protégé, Manchin, folk heroes. But the state has changed in the Trump era, and loyalties have hardened, said Scott Widmeyer, co-founder of the Stubblefield Institute for Civil Political Communications at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. “We’ve seen heated political races, but I don’t think anything has been as nasty and down and dirty as this one,” he said. “Republicans are eating their own.” Institute officials invited both candidates to a debate, but only McKinley accepted. They then suggested that the candidates come separately to town hall meetings. Only McKinley accepted. Mooney is the one evincing confidence, however. McKinley entered the race at a structural advantage. The state’s newly drawn district includes 19 of the 20 counties McKinley previously represented and only eight of the 17 counties in Mooney’s current district. Mooney’s biggest population centre, the capital in Charleston, was sent to Rep Carol Miller, the only other West Virginian in the House. But Trump is popular in every West Virginia county, and on the power of his name, Mooney has been posting polls from national and local outfits showing him up by double digits before Tuesday’s primary. Aides close to McKinley say the race will be close, and as long as Trump does not swoop into the state at the last minute for a get-out-the-vote rally, either candidate could still win a low-turnout affair. One campaign official said many voters who long ago abandoned the Democrats but not their Democratic Party registration have been re-registering as independents or Republicans to vote against Mooney. Jonathan Kott, a former spokesperson and adviser to Manchin, said the Democratic senator has “a genuine friendship and working relationship” with McKinley, a point Manchin made during a local radio interview last week. But what seems to have really pushed the Democratic senator to intervene in a Republican primary was not his friendship with McKinley but his anger over Mooney’s opposition to the infrastructure bill. “Mooney’s vote against the infrastructure bill shows he isn’t interested in what’s best for West Virginia,” Kott said. In the interview, Manchin also took a swipe at “Maryland Mooney.” “Alex came here, I think, for political opportunity. I can’t figure any other reason,” he told radio host Hoppy Kercheval. It is only one House seat in a very particular state, but the narrative of the West Virginia race has caught the attention of a wider audience trying to divine how firmly Trump has the Republican Party in his grip. “I think we’ll all be watching the returns Tuesday night,” Widmeyer said, alluding to the author JD Vance’s come-from-behind victory in the Republican Senate primary in Ohio after Trump endorsed him. “This will be the second week where we’re watching the influence of Trump on one candidate.”   © 2022 The New York Times Company