Alex Mooney

Alexander Xavier Mooney (born June 7, 1971) is an American politician serving since 2015 as the U.S. representative from WV's 2nd congressional district.

Mooney was born in 1971 in Washington, D.C., and raised in Frederick, Maryland.

He graduated from Frederick High School, where he was elected president of the student government.

In 1993, Mooney received his B.A. in philosophy from Dartmouth College.

In 1995, he became a legislative analyst for the House Republican Conference.

In 1998, Mooney defeated incumbent Republican John W. Derr in the primary election and Democrat Ronald S. Bird in the general election.

A member of the Republican Party, he represented the 3rd district in the Maryland State Senate from 1999 to 2011 and is a former chair of the Maryland Republican Party.

He is the first Hispanic person elected to Congress from West Virginia.

In November 2022, Mooney filed to run for U.S. Senate in 2024, for the West Virginia seat occupied by Democrat Joe Manchin.

Mooney's mother, Lala, was a Cuban refugee who escaped political imprisonment at age 21, shortly after the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

Her older brother is former Miami mayor Xavier Suarez, and Mooney is the cousin of Miami's current mayor, Francis Suarez.

His great-grandparents on his father's side were Irish-born.

His father, Vincent, grew up in Long Island, New York.

From 1999 to 2011, Mooney represented Maryland's 3rd district, which covers parts of Washington and Frederick counties, in the Maryland Senate.

In 2002, he was reelected, defeating Democrat Sue Hecht with 55% of the vote.

He served as the National Journalism Center's executive director from 2005 to 2012.

In 2006, he won reelection with 52% of the vote against Candy Greenway.

In 2007, Mooney was elected to the Dartmouth College Association of Alumni's executive committee.

In early 2008, he traveled to New Hampshire to testify in support of a state bill that would require legislative approval for amendments that the private Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College wished to make to its charter.

After college, Mooney interned for U.S. Representative Ed Royce and then served as staff assistant to U.S. Representative Roscoe Bartlett.

In 2008, Barack Obama took 40% of the vote in the old 6th, but would have won 56% in the new 6th.

After creating an exploratory committee to challenge Bartlett in the Republican primary, Mooney decided not to run against him.

While attending Dartmouth, he ran for the New Hampshire House of Representatives in Grafton County's 10th district.

He finished in last place with 8% of the vote.

In 2010, Democrat Ronald N. Young, Mayor of Frederick, defeated him 51%–49%.

In the Maryland State Senate, Mooney was a member of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, the Joint Committee on Investigation, the Joint Committee on Federal Relations, and the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee.

He served on the Maryland Rural Caucus, the Taxpayers Protection Caucus, and the Maryland Veterans Caucus.

On December 11, 2010, Mooney was elected chair of the Maryland Republican Party.

Maryland's redistricting based on the 2010 census significantly redrew the boundaries of incumbent Roscoe Bartlett's 6th district.

The district lost all of heavily Republican Carroll County, as well as some Republican-leaning parts of Baltimore, Frederick and Harford counties, while gaining a heavily Democratic spur of Montgomery County.

In March 2012, Mooney filed as a candidate in the 2014 Republican primary for Maryland's 6th congressional District.

He subsequently had to withdraw his candidacy because he was still Bartlett's part-time outreach director at the time he filed to run.

House ethics rules do not allow congressional staffers to remain employed in a congressional office while campaigning.

Mooney subsequently moved to Charles Town, West Virginia, a small town on the state's eastern tip, and declared his candidacy for WV's 2nd congressional district.

The district includes most of the West Virginia portion of the Washington media market.

Seven-term Republican incumbent Shelley Moore Capito was giving up the seat to run for the United States Senate.

During his campaign, some West Virginia Democrats accused Mooney of being a carpetbagger since he had recently moved to West Virginia.

He was chair until early 2013.

Mooney received the Republican nomination on May 13, 2014, beating six other candidates.

He finished first in 15 of the 17 counties in the congressional district, with 36.02% of the vote.