Gov. Jim Justice and his wife Cathy celebrated Babydog’s fifth birthday on Tuesday, Oct, 15, 2024, at John Marshall High School in Glen Dale, W.Va. The governor and Babydog will travel to Pennsylvania on Thursday to campaign for former President Donald Trump. (Office of the Gov. Jim Justice | Courtesy photo)
Gov. Jim Justice and his pet bulldog are traveling about 25 miles over the West Virginia border to Pennsylvania on Thursday for a campaign event in support of former President Donald Trump.
Justice — who has repeatedly for years called the former president a close, personal friend of his — will talk to voters at 6 p.m. at the Trump campaign’s headquarters in Waynesburg. Trump will not be present for the event, which is part of his campaign’s ongoing “road trip” through battleground states that will prove crucial in his race against Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Babydog, Justice’s pet English bulldog who has been used as a political prop for the governor over the last few years, will also be present in Pennsylvania, according to a news release. It’s not the first time Babydog has been used politically on a national level; in July, Justice brought her on stage for his speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where she was met with applause by those in attendance and the internet.
Justice’s campaign stop for Trump comes as the governor has done little official campaigning for his own senatorial campaign in West Virginia.
While Justice has been holding events throughout the state in recent months, they’ve been under the guise of gubernatorial business. His most recent event was Tuesday at Barboursville Middle School, where he held a birthday party for Babydog on the taxpayers’ dime and with other state officials in attendance.
Justice has also repeatedly used his weekly virtual press briefings to share what many would consider to be campaign messages for his race, despite those briefings being paid for and broadcast by the state of West Virginia.
Justice has told reporters on those briefings that he is incredibly confident he will be elected to the senate in November over his competitor, the former mayor of Wheeling and Democrat Glenn Elliott. They are running for the seat currently held by Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., who announced last year that he would not be seeking reelection.
The governor has supported Trump and Trump’s political stances consistently since 2017, often defending the former president when criticisms and allegations have come against him. In August 2017, Justice joined Trump for a political rally in Huntington where the governor announced that he was leaving the Democratic Party and registering as a Republican.
“This man is a good man,” Justice said of Trump at the rally. “He’s got a backbone. He’s got real ideas. He cares about America. He cares about us in West Virginia.”
When Trump was criminally indicted last spring, Justice called the legal proceedings a “witch hunt” and nothing more than political attacks against those who disagree with him. He repeated those lines in May of this year when Trump was convicted and found guilty by a New York jury on 34 charges related to his attempts to illegally influence the 2016 election.
“The guilty verdict against President Donald Trump is a deeply troubling and a politicized decision that undermines the principles of justice. The witch hunt against President Trump continues today,” Justice said in a statement then. “I will always treasure my friendship with Donald J. Trump and the Trump family and never waiver in my support. We must do all we can to help re-elect President Trump in November.”
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