MORGANTOWN – Three members of West Virginia’s Congressional delegation are in national news headlines on a daily basis lately. Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin is regularly referred to as the most powerful person in D.C.: a moderate able to stifle the progressive ambitions of President Biden and his more liberal Senate colleagues.
Republican Reps. David McKinley and Alex Mooney are on the radar because West Virginia will lose a Congressional district and the two incumbents must face off in the May 2022 primary for a chance to win the new 2nd District seat, representing the northern half of the state.
Here is a look at their current campaign finances. While Manchin isn’t up for reelection until 2024, his campaign coffers are in the news, with Republican billionaire Ken Langone, of New York, announcing this week he plans to hold a huge fundraiser for Manchin.
Manchin
FEC reports show Manchin’s campaign committee has $5.39 million cash on hand. For the first three quarters of 2021 – Jan. 1-Sept. 30 – he raised $3.26 million, with $2.59 million of that coming from individual contributors and $634,100 from PACs.
Three of his top seven contributions in 2021 came through ActBlue, a nonprofit that bundles small individual contributions from across the country and directs them to Democratic candidates. ActBlue sent him $745,710.29 in September, $335,352.29 in June and $54,084.27 in March.
His next-biggest contributor this year is the Votesane PAC. It describes itself as a nonpartisan PAC “founded and run by a group of political and news junkies from both sides of the aisle.” Votesane sent him $97,600.01 in June, $19,625 in March and $8,295 in September.
The first appearance of a corporate PAC is the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance PAC at number six, with $13,000 in June.
A broad array of corporate PACs have sent him money: 96 separate donations during the third quarter.
They include pharmaceutical and health care companies, banking and insurance companies, retailers and energy companies: ConocoPhillips, Dominion, Duke, Edison, EQT and more.
As usual for most of West Virginia’s delegation – from both parties – over the years, most of his donations come from out of state. For 2021 so far, Texas is tops with $911,851.66. Florida is a distant second, with $215,390.
That’s followed by New York, Florida, California, Pennsylvania, Virginia, D.C., Illinois, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Louisiana, Alabama, Missouri, and then West Virginia, with $33,490.
McKinley vs. Mooney
McKinley represents the current 1st Congressional District, which ranges from Wood County in the west to Mineral County in the east and includes all of the Northern Panhandle. He has the advantage of being a Wheeling native who served in the state Legislature and led the state GOP before seeking federal office.
Mooney represents the current 2nd District, which runs from Putnam County in the west to Jefferson in the east. He was elected in 2014 and has the financial upper hand at the moment, but has been perceived by some as a carpetbagger: He lives in Charles Town, near the borders of Virginia and Maryland, and served in the Maryland state Senate from 1999 to 2011 — representing a district in the Washington, D.C., area.
In July, the Office of Congressional Ethics transmitted a referral regarding Mooney’s alleged personal use of campaign funds to the House Ethics Committee. In September, the committee chair and ranking GOP member jointly decided to extend the review of the matter in order to gather more information, and announced that decision on Oct. 21, noting that extending the review does not indicate any violations have occurred.
Mooney’s campaign has $2.76 million on hand. It raised $2.92 million in 2022 with $469,210.42 in itemized individual contributions, $115,001.87 in unitemized individual contributions and $93,092.06 from PACS.
Much of his campaign fund came from transferring money from his prior committee, Alex Mooney for Congress, to his new committee, Mooney for Congress 2022. The old committee transferred money in February, March and April.
WinRed is the GOP version of ActBlue, and eight of his top 12 contributions for the year were pooled and channeled through WinRed; they ranged from $33,551.28 in February to $5,802.01 in September.
California is Mooney’s biggest contributor state in 2021, with $67,533. It’s followed by Virginia and Florida, then West Virginia with $27,165 and Maryland with $22,933.55.
McKinley’s campaign chest is roughly a quarter the size of Mooneys: $628,141.69.
His campaign raised $385,423.69 this year, with $85,050 in itemized individual contributions and $298,300 from PACS.
McKinley had $6,975 channeled through WinRed followed by 15 PAC donations of $5,000 each. The PACS represent a wide variety of interests: stone and gravel companies, letter carriers, engineers (McKinley is an engineer), unions, horse breeders, communications companies and more.
Unlike for Mooney and Manchin, West Virginia donors provided the single largest pool of donations for McKinley in 2021: $39,850. Mississippi is a distant second at $11,600, then D.C., North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida, Maryland, Ohio, Wisconsin and Delaware.
TWEET David Beard @dbeardtdp EMAIL dbeard@dominionpost.com
