About
Alex Mooney (R-W. Va.) has served West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2015. He ran for reelection in 2022 with Trump’s endorsement and won in his solidly Republican district.
Mooney was previously active in Maryland state government, serving in the Maryland Senate from 1999 to 2011 and as chair of the Maryland Republican Party from 2010–13. He moved to West Virginia in 2014 to run for Congress, leading critics to call him a “carpetbagger.”
Mooney calls himself a “principled conservative” who “believes in the American values of hard work, faith, and freedom that have made our country great.” Yet, in August 2021, the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) found that he had spent thousands of dollars in campaign contributions on personal expenses such as fast food and resort trips for his family, and failed to properly report more than $40,000 in expenditures. Mooney has since repaid some of the misappropriated funds as the OCE continued its investigation.
In voting against H.R. 1, the 2021 voter protection legislation known as the For the People Act, Mooney claimed that it “mandates practices nationwide” that include “ballot harvesting, universal mail-in voting and same-day registration.” Politifact found that neither ballot harvesting nor mail-in voting are mandated by the bill, rating his statements “half-true.”
After the 2020 presidential election, Mooney adhered to the GOP playbook by spreading the Big Lie, making claims of fraud unfounded by facts. He objected to certifying Biden’s Electoral College win and voted against both impeaching Trump for inciting the mob and establishing a special House committee to investigate the insurrection, among other measures.
January 6, 2021
- Just hours after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Mooney joined 146 other congressional Republicans in refusing to certify Biden’s win of the 2020 presidential election.
- Mooney voted against impeaching Trump for his role in instigating the attack on Congress and the Capitol, and for fanning the flames once the riot broke out. In justifying his vote, he released a statement that read “while many people may have disagreed with the content of President Trump’s speech on January 6th, this political speech was protected under the First Amendment.”
- Mooney voted against establishing a House committee to investigate the genesis of the violent assault on the Capitol and disruption of the congressional procedure underway that day. He claimed that given the under-representation of Republicans, the committee would be incapable of acting impartially and, echoing one of Trump’s favorite complaints, he called it “a witch hunt.”
The Big Lie
- Following the election, Mooney released a statement on Nov. 5, 2020 saying he “agrees with President Trump that every legal vote must be counted,” blaming “biased” polls for discouraging Republican voters, and accusing Democratic state officials of breaking the law to benefit their own party.
- On Dec. 8, 2020, Mooney introduced a resolution during a GOP conference call that would condemn any Republican who called upon Trump to concede the election before investigations of voter fraud and misconduct were completed.
- On Dec. 10, 2020, Mooney signed an amicus brief in a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the results of the presidential election in four swing states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
- On Jan. 7, 2021, Mooney issued a statement explaining why he did not certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, claiming that state officials in Pennsylvania acted unconstitutionally in several ways, including preventing verification of signatures on absentee ballots and extending the deadline to provide proof of identity.