Justice confident on winning upcoming election by a 'landslide'

Oct. 30--BLUEFIELD -- Gov. Jim Justice said during his stop at Bluefield State College Thursday he is confident of winning Tuesday's election, but expressed concern about whether Pres. Donald Trump will be reelected.

Justice said every candidate has to run to the finish line in an election, but he is going to win by a "landslide."

"I am not just going to win, I mean I am going to win by a landslide," he said. "I am 100 percent confident about myself."

Justice said he is Governor and ran for reelection because he wants to serve.

"If people decided they don't want me to be here, that's okay with me," he said. "It's an honor, but I've got plenty to do. It's an honor for me to be here and I'm going to do stuff and I'm going to do it in a way that is knocking it out of the park."

Justice said what he is concerned about is the presidential election.

"I am really worried about our President," he said. "That could really significantly disrupt our lives in West Virginia in a negative way."

Anyone running for political office should always be concerned about the outcome, he added.

"But I am really concerned our President could lose," he said. "I am really concerned, but at the same time I believe he is going to win, but it is going to be really, really close."

Justice said the winner may not be known on Nov. 3.

"It is not going to be a runaway, it will be really close," he said, "and it will take days, if not weeks, to probably decide who the winner is."

Justice said the President's handling of the pandemic may have hurt him, but primarily because of the "spin on it" by the media.

"But if you are really fair, think about back in ... December, January ... we had the most vivacious economy in the world, an engine that was running like nobody's business," he said. "What kind of decision was it to shut down that economy? Can you imagine how difficult that decision was? Why would you do that unless you thought millions were going to die? He had to make the decision to save millions of lives, and he made it and shut down the economy. And when he did, it made things really, really, really difficult."

Justice said considering the 200,000-plus deaths when Pres. Trump thought more than 2 million would die, his handling of this has been "courageous," and to second-guess the decision to shut down the economy now is "just plain not fair."

States had the right to decide what they should be doing, he said, "but at the same time, just like we've done in West Virginia, you've got to keep everybody together. You've got to keep the whole nation together pulling the ropes, and really and truly if we had fragmented into 50 states and gone a lot of different ways ... it could have made it even more so,"

Justice also addressed the current surge of positive cases and hospitalizations in the state by saying the state is "ready."

"Without question, we are ready," he said. "But absolutely we would all be foolish if we were not all concerned. This thing is going across our nation. West Virginia is the oldest, the sickest and without any question we should all be concerned and try to do all that is within us with our masks, with our social distancing, with all the different things to try to ensure our safety as best we can."

Justice said the state has all of the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) it needs, the National Guard is ready "and we are not going to back up a bit on this."

A vaccine will probably not be available before the end of the year, he said, adding that he can only speculate.

"I really believe it will probably be February before we will really start significant vaccinations," he said. "But what we've go to do, we've got to make it until February. We've got to make until that vaccine gives us our life back."

Justice also said state money may be available to help compensate those who work on the front lines with COVID.

"We work on that every day," he said. "We are working on 'hero's pay' that would help and supplement our first-responders ... and all of those who are frontline defenses who have given us so much."

They have sacrificed much, he said, and "we would like to give them more."

During the stop in Bluefield, Justice also announced the awarding of grants to towns in Mercer, McDowell and Summers counties as part of the Transportation Alternatives and Recreational Trails Program (TARTP).

In Mercer County, the Town of Athens will receive $46,875 for the Athens Sidewalk Project.

McDowell County grants are $75,000 for the Town of Iaeger and $40,000 for the Town of Bradshaw, both for sidewalk replacement projects.

The City of Hinton in Summers County was awarded a $40,000 grant, also for sidewalks.

Del. Ed Evans (D-McDowell County) attended the event and accepted the grants for McDowell County.

"We always need sidewalks," he said, adding the sidewalks that need to be replaced were built by coal companies years ago and had deteriorated.

"To get this amount of money from the state and federal government means a lot," he said.

West Virginia TARTP grants help towns and cities build and improve sidewalks, lighting, trails, and more. The program is administered by the West Virginia Department of Transportation and funded by the Federal Highway Administration.

-- Contact Charles Boothe at [email protected]

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