By Laura Curtis

May 10, 2016 - He’s the richest man in West Virginia with a personality to match his 6’7″ frame. He recently suggested economic issues in his state could be resolved in part with a visit to the television show, “Shark Tank.” Suddenly a Democrat, he’s taken the party’s gubernatorial primary by storm. Sound familiar?

Coal magnate Jim Justice, who is leading in the polls for the Democratic primary for governor in West Virginia, says he’s not sure what to believe about climate change and he’s doubling down on a coal boom returning to save the state. He declared himself a member of the Democratic party just months before announcing his candidacy. Voting in the state is tomorrow.

Known for owning coal companies and reviving the luxurious Greenbrier resort after it teetered on the edge of bankruptcy in 2009, he has a reported net worth of $1.64 billion, but is running a folksy campaign. And he may be running in the Democratic primary, but he’s doing it on his own terms.

“The elect-ability argument for Justice is that he’s not running as a Democrat. He’s running much more off his personal story,” Scott Crichlow, chairman of West Virginia University’s political science department, said in an interview.

Trailing Justice in polling for tomorrow’s primary are Jeff Kessler, the minority leader of the state Senate, and Booth Goodwin, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia. Kessler has endorsed Bernie Sanders, and introduced the candidate at an April 26 event in Huntington. Goodwin, who helped prosecute mine owner Don Blankenship, has the backing of retired Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller.

Justice V. Cole

Justice may be unconventional but he did secure an early endorsement from the United Mine Workers of America, something labor union President Cecil Roberts said was a simple decision. “There is no one in this race who understands more about the coal industry and the people who work in it than Jim Justice. No one,” Roberts said in a statement.

While the UMWA represents more than 35,000 active and retired coal miners across West Virginia, according to the labor union, it isn’t clear how much that will help Justice in November. The labor organization “blindly” endorses Democrats, despite the Obama administration’s track record of coal-killing regulations, West Virginia Coal Association Senior Vice President Chris Hamilton said in an interview. That group endorsed Donald Trump for president last week.

Whoever wins on the Democratic side is set to face Republican state senate president and auto dealer Bill Cole. He has the backing of the West Virginia Business and Industry Council, an umbrella group comprised of 60 West Virginia trade associations and businesses. Hamilton, the chairman of WVBIC, says the coal industry and business community in the state overwhelmingly support him.

“Five years ago, except for his car dealership in the southern part of the state, nobody would have heard of him,” said Crichlow. Now, Cole is the rare down-ballot candidate likely to benefit from having Trump as the Republican presidential nominee. Trump is likely to carry the state by a large margin in November, which would help Cole. “Justice is going to have to do something really different to get out from under that tide.”

Coal is King

The rhetoric across both the Justice and Cole campaigns has centered on defeating President Barack Obama’s “war on coal.” Both candidates favor leveraging the state’s natural resources to boost economic growth.

Bill Cole, who was elected from the southern, hard-hit coal producing part of the state, is running on his work in the legislature. In a policy statement called “Bill Cole’s Fight for Coal,” he says he’s committed to getting miners back to work, including rolling back a severance tax on coal.

The Clinton Problem

In a move to distance himself from national party politics, Justice has said that he won’t campaign with Hillary Clinton, who gaffed in March by saying she would put coal companies and miners out of business. “I won’t campaign with anybody, especially not someone who is not a proponent of West Virginia in every way,” he told the Bluefield Daily Telegraph.

Justice says he would push for incentives for power stations in the state to use West Virginia coal, and he’d find new markets for its metallurgical coal. “Mark it down: We are going to end up in West Virginia mining more coal in West Virginia than has ever been mined before,” Justice said April 20 on MetroNews.

‘A Donald Trump kind of thing’

Justice has also faced allegations of shirking fees for safety violations at his mining operations and not making payments to contractors. While he admits being “maybe a little late to the dance,” Justice blamed cash-flow problems in the April 20 MetroNews interview. “It’s surely not any devious issue, for crying out loud. You’re trying to keep people working.”

Justice may get a pass because he helped save the Greenbrier, and a sentiment that at least he hasn’t abandoned the state. “It seems to be a Donald Trump kind of thing,” Crichlow said. “If you have the grandiose message people seem to cut you a lot of slack.”

Jim Justice