KBAK · Ray Lewis · September 3, 2026
HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) -- Senator Jim Justice, the West Virginia Republican, is reportedly considering cutting short his freshman term in Congress.
He's exploring a 2028 run for governor, according to Politico, and returning to the Charleston office he held before entering the Senate last year. Justice plans to discuss his ambitions with political operatives and donors next week, as he attends the state chamber of commerce's annual business summit.
"I think he's closer to running than not," someone who spoke with Justice about his plans told Politico. "If I had to give a percentage, I would think he's 75 percent likely to do this."
The National News Desk requested comment from the senator but hasn't received a response.
He's previously expressed frustration about D.C.'s dynamics, telling WV News in January that he was caught off guard by Congress's ultra-partisan power fights.
"It's not that it's a hectic pace and it's not that it requires more work than being governor, but it requires a lot of dealing with frustration, because you've got a constant food fight going on between two sides, and they're trying to outdo one another all the time," Justice said. "That doesn't make a bit of sense to me."
An early exit from the Senate wouldn't likely change the GOP caucus' makeup -- West Virginia's governor would have to appoint another Republican -- but his departure would shine a light on the Capitol's destructive division.
Both the Senate and House have devolved into partisan arenas over the past several years, as Republicans and Democrats increasingly pick party allegiance over aisle-crossing cooperation. Congress is as a result passing less legislation, choosing to stay on the sidelines while the White House exercises its growing power.
"Despite decades of bipartisan offenses and bipartisan critiques, nothing seems to change," J.D. Rackey and Michael Thorning, researchers with the Bipartisan Policy Center, remarked earlier this year. "Factors such as polarization, electoral competition, and the nationalization of politics have contributed to a dynamic where members of Congress are incentivized to uniformly back their co-partisans in the White House rather than exercise their institutional prerogatives."
Most Americans are taking notice of Congress's inaction. Eighty-six percent of people polled by Gallup in April said they disapproved of the legislature. The last time a majority of Americans told the firm they backed Congress was early on in the George W. Bush administration, when the Capitol had narrower party margins and was less ideologically divided.