It is 2024 and I’m heading into the new year kind of blind. It’s natural to try to make some predictions or express some expectations when a new year approaches, but when it comes to West Virginia politics I find it hard to see what the future holds.

As a reporter, I try to avoid making outright predictions, especially about races. I might have personal opinions about who might win this race or lose that race, but I try not to broadcast those opinions publicly.

For example: it might be easy to say at this moment that Gov. Jim Justice will win the Republican primary in 2024 for U.S. Senate. Certainly if the election were held today that might be true. But we still have five months to go. How many political prognosticators thought former congressman David McKinley would easily fend off Rep. Alex Mooney in 2020? Yet, Mooney picked up every county but two in the new 2nd Congressional.

Mooney has a climb ahead of him in the Senate GOP primary, but to write him off now would be a mistake. So much can happen between now and May and who knows what surprises are in store.

The same goes for the Republican primary for governor of West Virginia. Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is the clear frontrunner with former Delegate Moore Capito hot on his heels and Secretary of State Mac Warner and Huntington businessman Chris Miller in third and fourth, respectively. With others in the race and possibly more jumping in during January’s candidate filing period beginning Jan. 8, that could further muddy the waters.

And as I’ve said before, no one is even thinking about the other statewide offices that will be on the ballot, including the state Supreme Court and Intermediate Court of Appeals races that will be decided in May.

I’d save your predictions about how the election will go until closer to early voting.

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As mentioned above, Moore Capito is now former delegate Moore Capito. He resigned in one of the strangest ways I’ve seen, doing so on Gov. Jim Justice’s weekly administration briefing that was besotted with technical issues.

Reporters these days are sparingly attending Justice’s virtual briefing. Frankly, beyond making milquetoast announcements that could be handled by press releases, it is becoming increasingly harder to get actual answers to questions, especially about issues going on in his administration. Justice seems checked out and unable to answer specific questions, often deflecting or giving an answer wholly unrelated to the question you asked.

In short, I RSVPed to participate in the Zoom conference reporters must participate in for the briefings maybe every other briefing. Other reporters do the same. I wasn’t on last week’s briefing, instead choosing to live-stream it while working on something else.

The other problem with the administration briefings is Justice is notoriously late, often by as much as a full hour. The perils of driving to Charleston from Lewisburg. So when the briefing hadn’t started on YouTube nearly 90 minutes after the posted start time, some of us reporters began to wonder what was up.

It turns out the briefing had started, but the live-stream failed for YouTube and X. It was only live-streaming on Facebook. And Capito was announcing his retirement from the House to focus on his campaign for governor.

I’m told it was the governor’s idea for Capito to announce his retirement during the briefing. Justice has used his state taxpayer-funded briefing for blatant political purposes before. But it doesn’t make it any less cringe when it happens.

When asked, Justice said that allowing Capito to resign on the briefing should not be considered an endorsement, but who is he kidding here? If you’re going to use your briefing for political purposes, you might as well rip the bandage off and endorse, though I suspect that will come once the candidate filing period closes. But many Justice administration officials have donated to Capito and both Moore Capito and U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito have endorsed Justice for the Senate.

My question is this: will the Justice/Capito alliance help Moore Capito defeat Morrisey? No doubt that Justice is wildly popular in West Virginia and made of Teflon, but can his coattails help Capito? That remains to be seen.

Also, does resigning from the House really help? I can understand resigning as House Judiciary Committee chairman. The Senate and House Judiciary and Finance committees are the most powerful in the Legislature, with nearly every bill going through at least one of those committees. It’s hard to run for another office and be a traffic cop for legislation at the same time.

However, I would have at least remained a House member if I were Capito. Running as a “get-it-done” conservative, Capito has been able to claim on the campaign trail that he is the only candidate for governor to vote for tax cuts. You can’t claim credit for votes going forward if you’re not there to vote. Either way, I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision.