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Moore Capito hits campaign trail in pursuit of West Virginia governorship

West Virginia Del. Moore Capito, R-Kanawha, speaks during an interview Thursday at the Parkersburg News and Sentinel. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

PARKERSBURG — Crisscrossing the state on his campaign for governor, West Virginia House Judiciary Chairman Moore Capito made another stop Thursday in Wood County.

It’s familiar and often friendly territory for the Kanawha County delegate and his mother, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.

“Being a Republican in Wood County was cool before it was cool to be a Republican in West Virginia,” Capito recalled his mother saying.

Attending events like Thursday’s Wood County Republican Party picnic are part of his effort to meet and listen to as many West Virginians as possible before May’s GOP gubernatorial primary, Capito said. Voters, he said, won’t be swayed by the name association with his mother and late grandfather, former Gov. Arch Moore.

“If there’s anything I’ve learned from both of them, it’s that you have to earn it,” Capito said.

Recent polling placed Capito second behind Attorney General Patrick Morrissey in a crowded Republican field that also includes Secretary of State Mac Warner and Huntington automobile dealer Chris Miller, himself the son of U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va.; as well as Terri Bradshaw, David Gaaserud, Edwin Vanover and Rashida Yost.

Capito said he believes voters are “ready for some sort of next generation with energy and grit that sort of has skin in the game.”

As a sixth-generation West Virginian and father of two who said he is a proud product of the state’s public schools, Capito believes he fits the bill. Many of his high school classmates don’t call the Mountain State home anymore, a situation he blames on a lack of opportunity. Recent successes he attributes to the Republican supermajority in the Legislature have started to change that, Capito said, pointing to a personal income tax cut approved earlier this year and major economic development announcements like the $2.7 billion Nucor electric arc furnace and steel mill in Mason County or the $500 million BHE Renewables and Precision Castparts titanium melt facility in Ravenswood.

While doing the work to entice new businesses and investment to West Virginia, leaders cannot overlook addressing the needs of existing small businesses, Capito said, including continued improvements to the tax code and a reduction of vexatious lawsuits.

Public safety and education are top priorities, Capito said, suggesting life prison sentences for human trafficking and fentanyl dealing. There should be attention paid to how programming in the correctional system prepares people to be released back into society, but there is a need to “put away really, really bad people that are doing damage on our streets. That’s full stop.”

Parents should have the ability to choose the education that is best for their children, whether that’s public, private or home-schooling, he said. Priorities there include providing additional assistance so that teachers can focus on teaching instead of other tasks, and providing assistance in school to children that don’t have robust support at home.

With the Republican supermajority has come divides among members of the party on certain policy issues. While he said conservatives can generally agree on principles like smaller budgets, fiscal restraint, less regulation on small business and cultural issues, Capito said he has shown in the House an ability to bring different perspectives within that umbrella together.

But that doesn’t mean he won’t work across the aisle with Democrats as well, he said.

“I think there’s absolutely a need to work for all West Virginians,” he said. “That’s what I think our charge is as public servants is to listen, not to talk.”

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.

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