Jim Justice’s life feels like an American folktale.
Standing at 6’7”, the Republican senator from West Virginia is built like Paul Bunyan. He, like Bunyan, has an animal sidekick in Babydog, his English bulldog. He sounds like a character written by Mark Twain.
Justice was born and raised in Raleigh County, West Virginia, where he’d ride his bike to school, play Little League baseball, and romp through the woods. He went to college on an athletic scholarship and became captain of the Marshall University golf team.
He then joined the family agriculture business, and became an eight-time national corn-growing champion. He’s headed too many businesses to count, but decided to run for public office. He served two terms as governor of West Virginia and is now the junior senator from West Virginia.
Justice and Babydog joined me this week on “The Signal Sitdown” to talk about his journey from West Virginia to Washington, D.C.
Growing up in West Virginia in the ‘50s and ‘60s was nothing short of idyllic. “You never locked your doors. You left your keys in the car all the time,” Justice told me. “We respected our teachers. We loved our church.”
“It was a perfect childhood,” in large part because of the character of West Virginia, Justice said.
“West Virginia people, here’s how we are: We’re good people. We’re neighborly people. We’re craftsmen. We’re faith-based. We’re low crime. We’re all that,” the GOP senator continued. “But the other thing we are that really you don’t find many places is, we’re appreciative people.”
Sports like baseball and golf were the center of young Justice’s life. But golf did more than just send him to college. The game itself taught him essential life lessons.
“Golf teaches you the very foundations of what I think we should stand on, and that’s honor,” he said. In baseball, there are umpires, but “in golf, what you do is stop the whole game and say, ‘I didn’t touch third base, and I’m out.’”
“It gives you those principles and values that you can carry the rest of your life,” he added. “I think it’s a marvelous game.”
Growing up, Justice’s father would remind him not to “confuse effort with accomplishment.”
“I just remember it like it was yesterday, standing in front of his desk and saying, ‘Dad, there wasn’t anything I could do.’ And about that time, the whole desk exploded as he grabbed me around my shirt, or chest, and just slammed me down on the desk and said, ‘Damn you! There’s always something you can do, and you better damn well always remember that.‘”
After years working for his family’s businesses, his father’s call to action eventually led Justice to politics. He “remember[s] exactly” the moment he decided to run for governor of West Virginia.
During a golf tournament hosted at the luxurious Greenbrier resort, which Justice bought in 2009, he spoke to members of the media about the goodness of West Virginia and its people. After his remarks, an 87-year-old man came up to him, he said. “Big tears are just running down his face, and he said, ‘Thank you for making me be proud of who I am,’” Justice recalled. “I can’t always say it, you know, without getting all teared up and everything.”
“Well, look, you’ve never run for public office other than been on the Board of Education,” he said he thought to himself. Nevertheless, he decided, “I’m going to do it.”
For his first term, Justice ran and won as a Democrat in 2016. Shortly thereafter, however, he decided he needed to change parties. Working with Democrats, Justice said, “was just an effort in futility, and I wasn’t there to just spin my wheels.” The first person to know about his intent to switch outside of his immediate family was President Donald Trump, during Trump’s first term.
“I’ve been friends with the Trump family for a long time, and so I actually came to D.C. and went to the White House, and sat in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump,” Justice told me. “And I said, ‘This is what I’m thinking about doing.’ He almost jumped across the table and everything, and said, ‘Do it! Do it right now! Let’s do it right now!’”
Trump, however, quickly turned to another idea. “He said, ‘No, wait!’” Justice recalled of his meeting with Trump. “‘I’ll come to Huntington, or I’ll come to West Virginia, and we’ll announce it together and everything.’” At a rally on Aug. 3, 2017, in Huntington, West Virginia, Justice announced he was making the party switch.
Justice went on to win a second term, that time running as a Republican, and was elected to represent West Virginians in the Senate last November. He replaced Sen. Joe Manchin, another former Democrat who became an independent before opting not to run for reelection.
It’s hard to miss Justice when he roams the halls of the Senate, not only because of his stature, but also because Babydog is often in tow.
Nevertheless, the package deal of Justice and Babydog count as just one vote, and with razor-thin margins in both the House and Senate, Republicans are looking to deliver on the MAGA agenda.
“There’s an opportunity here to reset America in a really great way,” he said. “We don’t want to just get out over our skis and then, basically, at the end of the day, walk away with not much done.”
Justice concluded: “You know, my dad would look right at you and say, ‘Don’t screw it up.’”