Club for Growth leaves door open to challenge Capito in W.Va. Senate primary

The Club for Growth, an influential conservative organization, threatened to challenge Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) in the GOP primary for West Virginia's Senate seat.

Capito announced Monday she is launching a bid for Sen. Jay Rockefeller's (D-W.Va.) seat and Club for Growth President Chris Chocola promptly attacked her as another "establishment candidate," the likes of which he says cost the GOP winnable races in 2012.

"Her candidacy will undoubtedly be cheered by the GOP establishment, and dire warnings will be issued against any ‘divisive’ primary challenges, lest other candidates hurt Capito’s chances of winning. The problem is that Congresswoman Capito’s record looks a whole lot like the establishment candidates who lost this year," he said in a statement.

Chocola cited what he characterized as her "support of bailouts, pork, and bigger government" as evidence that she lacks the "formula for GOP success in U.S. Senate races." That formula for success, he said, was refined by candidates like Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), both of whom were elected to the Senate this year with Club for Growth support.

The group played a large role in both Cruz and Flake's primaries, to boost their preferred candidates, and could again get involved in primaries this cycle. But Club for Growth spokesman Barney Keller wouldn't say whether the group planned to mount a primary challenge against Capito.

“We have no idea if there will even be any other candidates in this race, and that is not the point. Our point is simply that the formula of party bosses picking big-government Republican nominees has not proved successful," Keller said in an email to The Hill.

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