Photo by Steven Allen Adams State Sen. Mike Stuart, joined by his wife Katrina, announced his campaign for West Virginia Attorney General Tuesday evening in Charleston.

CHARLESTON — Freshman state Sen. Mike Stuart is barely into his first four-year term in the West Virginia Senate, but he is ready to make the case to voters that he should succeed Patrick Morrisey as state’s top attorney.

Stuart, R-Kanawha, announced his campaign for West Virginia Attorney General Tuesday evening at the public conference room of the Kanawha County Clerk’s Voter Registration Office in downtown Charleston.

“With your support, with tremendous humility, a deep sense of purpose and obligation, I today announce I’m a candidate for Attorney General of the State of West Virginia,” Stuart said.

“The things I’ve done in my life have prepared me for this job. This is a serious job for a serious candidate with a serious background whose done serious things.”

Stuart, an attorney with Dinsmore and Shohl, was elected in 2022 to the newly redistricted seventh senatorial district, representing Lincoln, Boone, Logan counties and southern Kanawha County. Dinsmore and Shohl hired Stuart in 2021 to join its corporate investigations practice.

Previously, Stuart served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia from 2018 to 2021. He was appointed by former president Donald Trump and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.  

During his tenure, Stuart oversaw the convictions of two members of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, multiple law enforcement operations against prescription painkiller peddlers and illegal opioids, and cases to prevent elder fraud and exploitation. Stuart took part in the largest elder fraud takedown in state history, as well as the state’s largest Medicaid fraud prosecution.

“I have a big record as United States Attorney,” Stuart said. “I loved that job. I was built to be U.S. Attorney, and I was built to be the Attorney General of West Virginia.”

Stuart landed on Trump’s radar after chairing Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign in West Virginia, traveling the state with other statewide candidates to get out the vote for Trump.

In November general election in 2016, Trump carried the state with 69% of the vote. Stuart was also once the chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party and once led the now-defunct West Virginia Conservative Foundation. He also chaired a committee in 2014 that attempted to bring a presidential debate to the state.

A native of Barbour County and descendant of coal miners, Stuart is a 1995 graduate of West Virginia University and earned his law degree from Boston University in 2000. He once worked as a certified public accountant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, and his law career took him to K and L Gates and Steptoe and Johnson.

Current three-term Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced in April he would run for Republican nomination for governor, opening up his seat in 2024.  

“I want to thank Attorney General Morrisey,” Stuart said. “He’s done a phenomenal job as Attorney General. He has fought big battles. He has fought on a nation level. He has won big cases. And frankly, we have more people employed in West Virginia because of his work as Attorney General. Those are big shoes to fill and I’m going to do the best I can to try to fill them.”

Stuart said he would continue Morrisey’s legacy as Attorney General, focusing on the state’s opioid crisis; federal overreach, consumer protection; and the use of social and culture war issues used in decision making by corporate boards, sometimes called “wokeism.”

“We live in an era of fake news, canceled truth, ESG (environmental social governance), woke corporate boards, culture warriors, climate crazies, gender confusion, election uncertainty, drug normalizers, indoctrinators, and history haters to a certain degree,” Stuart said.

“You know who is responsible to fight all of those things in West Virginia? The Attorney General.”

Senate Majority Whip and Senate Judiciary Committee Vice Chairman Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, was first to announce his intentions to run for Attorney General earlier in April.

Weld has served two four-year terms in the state Senate representing the 1st District, which includes Hancock, Brooke and Ohio counties and part of Marshall County.  

“I welcome any candidate that joins the race and look forward to a campaign that is focused on the issues, because that’s what West Virginians deserve — an attorney general who understands their concerns about Washington D.C.’s outrageous attempts to dictate our state’s future to us,” Weld said in a statement Tuesday evening. “Over the next 12 months I plan on making it clear that I am the candidate most qualified to lead the fight against D.C and protect West Virginians’ interests here at home.”

Weld works for the Spilman Thomas and Battle law firm in Wheeling and serves as city attorney for Wellsburg.

He also worked as an assistant prosecuting attorney in Brooke County. He is also a captain in the United States Air Force Reserves.

Stuart did not mention Weld or any other potential candidate by name, but urged supporters to compare his voting record for his first year in office against other candidates and see who was the real conservative and who was a Republican In Name Only (RINO).

“When you look at folks who may run against me in this campaign, when they tell you they are conservative you need to look at their records,” Stuart said. “If their voting record is RINO, then they’re a RINO and it’s time we start paying attentions to those things.”