CHARLESTON, W.Va. • In an early victory for a Donald Trump-endorsed candidate at the start of midterm season, Rep. Alex Mooney on Tuesday beat fellow incumbent Rep. David McKinley in West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District Republican primary.

“Donald Trump loves West Virginia, and West Virginia loves Donald Trump,” Mooney said in his victory speech.

McKinley was criticized by the former president when he broke with his party as one of 13 Republicans to vote with the Democrats to support President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. Trump called McKinley a RINO, or “Republican in Name Only” and endorsed Mooney the day Biden signed the infrastructure law.

McKinley, who has represented the state in the House since 2011, said in a statement Tuesday night that serving the people of West Virginia had been the honor of his life.

“I’m proud that I have always stood up for what’s right for West Virginia — even when it hurt me politically,” he said.

The race was one of the most watched of the day. In Nebraska, another Trump-backed candidate, Charles Herbster, was in a crowded field of GOP contenders for governor.

The contests came on the heels of a victory by Trump-endorsed conservative JD Vance, author of the bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” who defeated six other candidates to win the Ohio Republican primary for U.S. Senate last week.

Earlier Tuesday night, Trump-endorsed incumbent U.S. Rep. Carol Miller breezed to the Republican nomination in West Virginia’s 1st District, defeating four little-known candidates and setting herself on a clear path to reelection.

Miller will vie for her third term in the House in the fall against Democrat Lacy Watson, who was unopposed in the Democratic primary. Watson, of Bluefield, lost in the 2020 Democratic primary in the former 3rd District.

In Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, in the Omaha area, three-term Republican Rep. Don Bacon won the primary over long-shot candidate Steve Kuehl, an Omaha consultant who got a shoutout from Trump when the former president visited earlier this month.

Sen. Mike Flood, a former speaker of the Nebraska Legislature, won in the state’s 1st Congressional District over five other Republican candidates.

Flood wants to fill the seat abandoned by Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican who resigned from office and ended his reelection bid after he was convicted of lying to federal authorities about an illegal campaign contribution. Fortenberry’s name still appeared on the ballot for the 1st Congressional District because he withdrew after a deadline to certify the ballot.