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| May 19, 2022 Dear Supporters, Last Tuesday, West Virginia's Primary voters spoke loud and clear as we defeated fellow Republican incumbent David McKinley by a wide margin. We won by 18.6 percentage points -- 54.21 percent to 35.62 percent. Three lesser known candidates received approximately 10 percent of the vote.  After the 2020 census, West Virginia lost one of its three congressional districts, this meant Congressman David McKinley and I were pitted against each other in the Republican Primary. The newly constructed West Virginia Second District is comprised of 27 counties in Northern West Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle. In the redrawn District, 68 percent is David McKinley's current district and only 32 percent is mine - so you can see the difficult challenge we faced due to redistricting. We won 24 of the 27 counties in the district, including 16 of the 19 in McKinley's current district. We won by over 4 percent in McKinley's district and by a whopping 49 percent in the counties in my current district. I believe the main reason we prevailed is because I was the clear conservative in the race. For example, my opponent David McKinley has a lifetime D rating from the American Conservative Union (ACU), while I have an A rating. McKinley also had a number of high profile bad votes, including voting for Pelosi's January 6th Committee, voting for the $1.2 trillion Biden/Pelosi non-infrastructure bill and voting for Anti-Second Amendment Red Flag laws. Furthermore, I was endorsed by President Donald Trump, the Club for Growth, ACU, West Virginia Citizens Defense League, Gun Owners of America and a number of other conservative groups. However, McKinley received over $1 million from labor unions and DC establishment type groups. It was amazing to watch how the establishment dumped over $1 million into this race to reelect a RINO Republican and unseat a conservative like me - even when it was clear by objective polling data that I had a significant lead. For example, the liberal Republican group "Defending Mainstreet Super Pac" spent over $500,000 in negative attacks ads against me. This money was funneled from labor unions and they produced over the top negative personal attacks ads. David McKinley was also able to raise hundreds of thousands in D.C. establishment PAC money and gifted his campaign $720,000 of his own personal money. This allowed McKinley to spend over $2 million against me. Additionally the US Chamber of Commerce spent $250,000 on behalf of McKinley in positive ads. The vast majority of McKinley's spending was in false negative personal attacks against me. McKinley also had the support of West Virginia's Republican Governor Jim Justice and Democrat Senator Joe Manchin, both of whom appeared in misleading negative television ads. Given that I was in a district that was vastly made up of McKinley's counties and the resources being thrown against me, I had to spend over $2 million and drain my war chest. We were also fortunate to have the conservative Club for Growth spend $1 million in TV ads to help me. President Trump was a huge help. He was kind enough to hold a district-wide telephone conference for me and invited me on stage with him at his rally in Greensburg, PA a couple days before the election. I had to work relentlessly to counter McKinley's lies and make sure the voters of West Virginia knew I was the only true conservative they could count on to continue fighting for them in Congress. I worked very hard, and thanks to you, we had the resources to ensure voters knew that I was the conservative Republican and he was the liberal RINO Republican. Let me be blunt, without your support I would have lost. For the past 8 years, I have been a fierce defender of conservative West Virginia values in Washington D.C., and I will continue to be a conservative warrior over the next term. Now we head to the General Election, where we continue to campaign on our shared conservative values to take back Congress this November. Republicans must take over the majority to stop Biden and his radical left-wing policies from further harming our Country. Thank you again for all your help, we could not have done it without you. Sincerely  Congressman Alex X. Mooney WV-2
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