West Virginia Governor-elect Patrick Morrisey celebrates his victory Tuesday night at The Roundhouse in Martinsburg.
Photo by Ainsley Hall
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WV News) — Republican state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey will be the 37th governor of West Virginia, according to unofficial election results.
Morrisey defeated Democratic candidate Huntington Mayor Steve Williams.
“You deserve respect and dignity and a path for a better life,” Morrisey said during an election night speech, according to reporting from The Associated Press. “I want to help you find that by fighting to protect your freedoms and eliminating all the barriers where you have government standing in your way.”
Morrisey, a New Jersey native, was first elected as West Virginia attorney general in 2012.
Morrisey, who has described himself as the “only proven conservative who has taken on West Virginia’s toughest challenges and won,” oversaw legal actions against pharmacies, pharmaceutical distributors and pharmaceutical manufacturers for their roles in the opioid epidemic. To date, the legal actions have netted “a gross amount of over $1 billion,” according to Morrisey.
The attorney general announced his gubernatorial bid in April 2023 after hinting at his plans for the 2024 race for more than a year.
“As governor, I’ll protect our jobs, fight to put more money in your pockets, advance educational excellence, supercharge economic and workforce growth and defend families from the ravages of drugs and the woke, anti-freedom forces facing us,” Morrisey said during an event in Harpers Ferry.
In a letter released in mid-November 2022, Morrisey urged potential backers not to pledge their support to other candidates.
“I am asking you to keep the faith and hold off pledging your support to any other candidate who may be making noise about one of the key races up in 2024,” he wrote.
Morrisey beat out a crowded field of Republican candidates to secure the GOP nomination for governor in the state’s May primary election. Securing 34.92% of the vote, he defeated former state lawmaker Moore Capito; businessman Chris Miller; and West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner.
Morrisey challenged Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va. — then a Democrat — in 2018, but Manchin narrowly kept his Senate seat with 49.6% of the vote.
Morrisey ran for a New Jersey U.S. House seat in 2000, but secured just 9% of the vote in the GOP primary.
Senior Staff Writer Charles Young can be reached at 304-626-1447 or cyoung@theet.com
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