Republicans flip West Virginia Senate seat as Jim Justice wins after Manchin's retirement

In a major turn of events, Republicans have managed to flip the West Virginia Senate seat, raising hopes to clinch a Senate majority. According to the latest projection from NBC News, West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice won the state’s open Senate seat on Tuesday.

Justice faced little to no competition from Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott, a Democrat, in a race. The Republicans were favoured in the Senate seat after the retirement of independent Senator Joe Manchin, who left the Democratic Party in May.

With Justice’s victory, the GOP now needs to flip one more seat to take control of the Senate, if Vice President Kamala Harris holds the White House for the Democrats. If former US President Donald Trump wins the 2024 race, the Republicans are poised to control the Senate if no other seats change hands, since the vice president breaks ties in the chamber.

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The ex-Democrat who flipped the seat for Republicans

Justice won the election as the governor of the state back in 2016, the same year Trump won the state by more than 42 per cent. Interestingly, at that time Justice was running as a Democrat, beating his Republican opponent by 7 percentage points, NBC News reported.

He announced his departure from the Democratic Party one year later, standing alongside Trump at a campaign rally. After easily winning re-election in 2020, speculation quickly began to mount as to whether the term-limited governor would eye a Senate bid in 2024. The rumours turned out to be true after Justice launched his campaign in 2023, as Manchin publicly refused to commit to running again.

Manchin who frequently clashed with the Democrats announced earlier this year that he wouldn’t seek re-election. While Justice had been the pick of the Republican establishment, he faced a primary challenge in the spring from GOP Representative Alex Mooney, who was backed by the conservative Club for Growth.

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Despite all odds, Justice cruised to victory, defeating Mooney by 35 per cent points in May. Since then he has faced little to no political opposition since then.

With inputs from agencies.