Polls close in West Virginia, where Trump is front and center in bitter GOP congressional primary

The polls have closed in West Virginia, where former President Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot, but his prestige within the GOP’s very much on the line in a bitter battle for a Republican congressional nomination between two incumbent lawmakers.

West Virginia lost a congressional seat during the once-in-a-decade congressional reapportionment, and Republican Reps. David McKinley and Alex Mooney were drawn into the state’s 2nd District.

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The race has partially turned into a test of the former president’s status as the most popular and influential politician in the Republican Party, nearly 16 months removed from the White House.

Mooney touts on the campaign trail and in ads that he’s the “only candidate Trump trusts to defend our values” and criticizes McKinley as a “RINO” and a “sellout.”

Mooney has repeatedly attacked McKinley for voting in favor of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law – one of President Biden’s domestic achievements, which will bring plenty of federal dollars to West Virginia, a state badly in need of infrastructure improvements. And Mooney targets McKinley for supporting the Democratic-controlled House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by right-wing extremists aiming to disrupt congressional certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory over Trump.

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Mooney told Fox News on Tuesday morning that Trump’s endorsement matters in the race. “Voters understand that he endorsed me,” Mooney said. “I think it makes a big difference.”

McKinley in his latest ad charges that Mooney, who’s currently facing an ethics investigation, is “desperate” and a “fraud.”

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“Mooney opposed Trump’s wall four times; opposed Trump’s plan to ban fentanyl from China; opposed Trump’s plan for veterans,” the moderator in McKinley’s spot claims.

While the former president didn’t hold a rally for Mooney in West Virginia, he invited the congressman to speak this past Friday at a rally in neighboring Pennsylvania.

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McKinley enjoys the backing of Republican Gov. Jim Justice.

And in an interesting twist, longtime moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, a former two-term governor with universal name ID in West Virginia, crossed party lines to star in a new ad on behalf of McKinley.

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In the spot, Manchin accuses Mooney of lying about McKinley and charges “Alex Mooney has proven he’s all about Alex Mooney, but West Virginians know David McKinley is all about us.”

Fox News’ Jake Karalexis contributed to this report