PROXY WAR: Morrisey vs. Capito Battle Lines Drawn in WV Senate Primaries
A sitting Republican delegate unloads on the governor on camera. A U.S. senator fires off with endorsements. West Virginia's Republican civil war is no longer a slow burn.
“This is probably the worst governor I have seen certainly in my lifetime. The worst Republican governor I have ever seen or heard of. He has no clue what the hell he’s doing.”
Those words did not come from a Democrat. They came from Delegate Michael Hite (R-Berkeley), a sitting Republican member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, speaking publicly on WRNR TV about Governor Patrick Morrisey. The video leaves nothing to interpretation.
Hite did not stop there. “Going after good, and I mean good, legislators,” he continued. “Senator Vince Deeds, salt of the earth. This guy is a great great man and a very good senator. I just don’t understand it. Clay Riley, one of the smartest people in the legislature and he’s running ads against him. I just don’t get any of this.”
Then came the gut punch: “I think Vernon Criss and Scot Heckert had it right from the get-go. This was a terrible choice. I wish I could take my vote back.”
Criss (R-Wood) is the Chairman of the House Finance Committee. Heckert (R-Wood) is chair of the House Public Health Subcommittee. Both men opposed Morrisey’s bid for governor. Both have since been proven right in the eyes of a growing number of their colleagues. Criss has been so public in his disdain for the governor’s carpetbagger status that he routinely refers to Morrisey as “the gentleman from New Jersey.” It is not meant as a compliment.
The Proxy War
Make no mistake: there is a proxy war happening inside the West Virginia Republican Party. The combatants are Governor Patrick Morrisey, the former Attorney General who won the governorship but has struggled to consolidate power, and U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, the born-and-bred Mountain State institution who commands the loyalty of the party’s mainstream wing.
Both have solid Republican credentials. Both are publicly supporting opposing candidates in contested West Virginia Senate and House primaries ahead of the May 12 election. And both know exactly what they are doing.
The personal dimension matters here. In the 2024 Republican gubernatorial primary, Morrisey defeated Moore Capito, the senator’s son. That victory did not come without cost to the relationship. Senator Capito received over 83% of the vote in her most recent Republican primary. Morrisey, in his most recent contested primary, received just 33%. The contrast in political standing within the state Republican Party could not be starker.
Morrisey Fires First
Morrisey moved first, publicly endorsing Jonathan Comer, a Lewisburg Baptist pastor, against incumbent Sen. Vince Deeds (R-Greenbrier) in Senate District 10. The governor framed his intervention in ideological terms, accusing a “group of status quo, liberal legislators” of opposing his “conservative, pro-Trump policies every step of the way.” He called Comer a “change agent.” He did not specify which policies Deeds had blocked.
It is worth noting that Comer is related to Kevin Comer, Morrisey’s own constituent services liaison in the governor’s office. That connection has not gone unnoticed in Charleston.
Deeds, who also happens to be a Baptist pastor, a retired state trooper, and the chief investigator for the Greenbrier County Prosecutor’s Office, responded with measured restraint. “The governor can do whatever he chooses,” Deeds said. “But I am resolved to remain committed to my district.”
Morrisey has since announced more endorsements are coming and made clear he intends to reshape the Republican legislative caucus in his image. He has publicly called sitting Republican legislators “RINOs” and dispatched the Morrisey campaign apparatus to run ads against delegates and senators who have not shown sufficient loyalty to his agenda. One of those targets is Delegate Clay Riley (R-Harrison, 72), the Vice Chairman of the House Finance Committee, who now faces a primary challenger while ads funded by Morrisey-aligned interests run against him.
Brad McElhinny of WV MetroNews also broke the story that Morrisey has been linked to a political action committee running attack ads against Sen. Tom Takubo (R-Kanawha), who is facing a primary challenge from former delegate Chris Pritt in Senate District 17. The ads falsely characterized Takubo’s 2021 vote on the Save Women’s Sports Act. Takubo voted against the bill not because he opposed its intent, but because he believed collegiate athletics should be regulated at the federal level rather than by state law.
Capito Responds
Senator Capito did not sit idle. She has countered with a volley of her own endorsements, each one a direct rebuke of Morrisey’s positioning. Capito endorsed incumbent Sen. Vince Deeds in Senate District 10, putting her squarely against Morrisey’s handpicked candidate in that race. She also endorsed Bob Farnbacher in his challenge against Sen. Michael Azinger in Senate District 3, and backed Michael Antolini against Sen. Rollan Roberts in Senate District 9. More endorsements from the senator are expected before the May 12 primary.
Neither Governor Morrisey’s office nor Senator Capito’s office responded to requests for comment from The WV WASP.
A Governor Running Out of Friends
The bluntness of Delegate Hite’s remarks on camera is striking, but sources with direct knowledge of the mood in the Republican caucus tell The WV WASP it is not surprising. According to sources speaking on background, Morrisey’s list of genuine legislative allies is very small, and the governor is alienating more members than he fully understands.
That assessment is consistent with what has played out publicly over the past year. Morrisey entered office with an aggressive posture toward the Legislature, deploying lobbyists to pressure delegates on his priority bills, publicly disparaging lawmakers who resisted, and in at least one documented case, withholding Legislative Economic Development Assistance funds from delegates who voted against his agenda. Delegates Heckert and Criss were among those who raised the alarm, with Heckert saying publicly that the governor’s approach amounted to political retaliation. “If you don’t agree with the governor or vote the way the administration wants you to vote, they’re going to find a way to try to punish you,” Heckert said at the time.
Morrisey’s own 2025 legislative session illustrated the problem. Despite a Republican supermajority, many of the governor’s priority bills were defeated or substantially watered down. His attempt to fully repeal the state’s certificate of need program failed. His vaccine exemption legislation was voted down in the House. A MetroNews commentary at the time drew a pointed contrast: Morrisey, unlike Donald Trump, does not command the kind of unconditional loyalty that bends a caucus to the executive’s will. West Virginia Republicans, as Heckert put it, do not respond well to being told what to do “or else.”
The governor’s strategy of going directly to primary voters to replace resistant legislators carries enormous risk. If his endorsed candidates lose, Morrisey will have burned relationships across the caucus for nothing. If they win, he will have made enemies of their predecessors’ friends and allies. Either way, he will have broken Ronald Reagan’s informal Eleventh Commandment to never speak ill of a fellow Republican, and done so loudly, in writing, on social media, with his name attached.
What It Means
The Morrisey-Capito conflict is not simply a personality clash. It is a contest over the ideological and structural direction of West Virginia Republicanism. Morrisey wants a Legislature that executes his agenda without friction. Capito, whose political roots in this state run far deeper than the governor’s, appears to be drawing a line on behalf of the institutional Republican Party and its legislators.
The May 12 primary will be a referendum on which vision of West Virginia Republicanism has more currency with the voters who actually show up. Morrisey is betting that his pro-Trump branding will be enough to move primary electorates against incumbent Republicans backed by the most popular figure in state politics. That is a significant bet.
If Delegate Hite is any indication of where Republican sentiment is heading behind closed doors, Morrisey may be underestimating just how many of his own party members wish they could take their votes back.
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