Representative Alexander X. Mooney

Alexander Xavier Mooney (born June 7, 1971) is an American lobbyist and former politician who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from West Virginia from 2015 to 2025. He represented West Virginia’s 2nd congressional district for five consecutive terms, becoming the first Hispanic person elected to Congress from West Virginia. Earlier in his career, he served in the Maryland State Senate from 1999 to 2011, representing the 3rd district, and later chaired the Maryland Republican Party. His decade in Congress coincided with a significant period in American political history, during which he participated in the federal legislative process and represented the interests of his constituents in West Virginia.

Mooney was born in Washington, D.C., on June 7, 1971, and raised in Frederick, Maryland. His mother, Lala, was a Cuban refugee who escaped political imprisonment at age 21 shortly after the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and his father, Vincent, grew up on Long Island, New York; his great-grandparents on his father’s side were Irish-born. Through his mother’s family, he is the nephew of former Miami mayor Xavier Suarez and a cousin of former Miami mayor Francis Suarez. Mooney attended Frederick High School in Frederick, Maryland, where he was elected president of the student government, an early indication of his interest in politics and public leadership.

In 1993, Mooney received a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Dartmouth College. While at Dartmouth, he made his first bid for public office, running for the New Hampshire House of Representatives in Grafton County’s 10th district; he finished last in that race with 8% of the vote. He remained active in Dartmouth affairs after graduation, being elected in 2007 to the Dartmouth College Association of Alumni’s executive committee. In early 2008, he returned to New Hampshire to testify in support of a state bill that would require legislative approval for amendments the private Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College sought to make to its charter, reflecting his ongoing engagement with issues of institutional governance and alumni representation.

Following college, Mooney began his career in national politics on Capitol Hill. He interned for U.S. Representative Ed Royce of California and then served as a staff assistant to U.S. Representative Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland. In 1995, he became a legislative analyst for the House Republican Conference, gaining experience in policy analysis and party strategy. These early staff roles in the U.S. House of Representatives provided him with familiarity with congressional procedure and Republican legislative priorities that would later inform his own service as a member of Congress.

Mooney entered elective office in Maryland in the late 1990s. In 1998, he defeated incumbent Republican state senator John W. Derr in the primary election for Maryland’s 3rd legislative district, which covers parts of Washington and Frederick counties, and then defeated Democrat Ronald S. Bird in the general election. He took office in the Maryland Senate in 1999 and was reelected in 2002, defeating Democrat Sue Hecht with 55% of the vote, and again in 2006, when he won 52% of the vote against Candy Greenway. During his tenure, he served on the Judicial Proceedings Committee, the Joint Committee on Investigation, the Joint Committee on Federal Relations, and the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee. He also participated in the Maryland Rural Caucus, the Taxpayers Protection Caucus, and the Maryland Veterans Caucus. In 2010, Democrat Ronald N. Young, the mayor of Frederick, defeated him for reelection by a margin of 51% to 49%, ending his 12-year service in the Maryland Senate.

Alongside his legislative work in Maryland, Mooney held positions in conservative and party organizations. From 2005 to 2012, he served as executive director of the National Journalism Center, a conservative training organization for aspiring journalists. On December 11, 2010, he was elected chair of the Maryland Republican Party, a post he held until early 2013, overseeing party organization and campaign efforts during a period of Democratic dominance in the state. After the 2010 census, Maryland’s redistricting significantly altered the boundaries of Representative Roscoe Bartlett’s 6th congressional district, making it substantially more favorable to Democrats. Mooney formed an exploratory committee to challenge Bartlett in the Republican primary but ultimately decided not to run against his former employer.

In March 2012, Mooney filed as a candidate in the 2014 Republican primary for Maryland’s 6th congressional district. He was required to withdraw, however, because he was still serving as Bartlett’s part-time outreach director at the time he filed, and House ethics rules prohibit congressional staffers from remaining employed in a congressional office while actively campaigning for Congress. Following this episode, Mooney moved to Charles Town, a small city in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, and declared his candidacy for West Virginia’s 2nd congressional district. The district encompassed much of the West Virginia portion of the Washington, D.C., media market. Seven-term Republican incumbent Shelley Moore Capito was vacating the seat to run for the United States Senate. During the 2014 campaign, some West Virginia Democrats criticized Mooney as a carpetbagger because he had only recently moved to the state.

Mooney secured the Republican nomination for West Virginia’s 2nd congressional district on May 13, 2014, winning 36.02% of the vote in a seven-candidate primary and finishing first in 15 of the district’s 17 counties. In the November 2014 general election, he defeated Democrat Nick Casey by a margin of 47% to 44%. His 5,000-vote margin in Berkeley County, part of the Washington media market like his home in Charles Town, exceeded his overall districtwide margin of about 4,900 votes. He also benefited from the strong statewide performance of Shelley Moore Capito, who carried every county in West Virginia in her Senate race. With this victory, Mooney became the first Latino elected to West Virginia’s congressional delegation in the state’s history.

Alexander X. Mooney served as a Representative from West Virginia in the United States Congress from January 3, 2015, to January 3, 2025, completing five terms in office. As a member of the House of Representatives, he participated in the democratic process at the federal level and contributed to the legislative work of the Republican Party during a period marked by divided government, shifting party control, and significant national policy debates. In 2016, he won renomination by defeating Republican primary challenger Marc Savitt with 72.9% of the vote and went on to defeat Democratic state delegate Mark Hunt in the general election, 58.2% to 41.8%. In 2018, he was reelected by defeating former U.S. State Department official Talley Sergent, 53.9% to 43.0%. In 2020, he again turned back a primary challenge, defeating Republican Matt Hann 71.7% to 28.3%, and then defeated Democratic energy policy analyst Cathy Kunkel in the general election, 63.1% to 36.9%.

Following the 2020 United States census, West Virginia lost one of its three U.S. House seats, and the state legislature redrew its congressional map, dismantling Mooney’s old 2nd district. The state was divided into northern and southern districts, and the traditional numbering from north to south was abandoned. Most of the western portion of the former 2nd district, including Charleston, was combined with much of the old 3rd district to form a new 1st district, while most of the eastern portion of the old 2nd district, including Mooney’s home base, was merged with the old 1st district, represented by six-term Republican David McKinley, to create the new 2nd district. Although the new 2nd district was geographically more McKinley’s than Mooney’s, both incumbents chose to run there. On May 10, 2022, Mooney defeated McKinley in the Republican primary, securing renomination in the reconfigured district and extending his service in Congress through the 2023–2025 term.

In November 2022, while still serving in the House, Mooney filed to run for the United States Senate in the 2024 election for the West Virginia seat held by Democrat Joe Manchin, who later announced he would not seek reelection. Mooney sought the Republican nomination for this open seat but was defeated in a landslide in the Republican primary by Governor Jim Justice. After leaving the House of Representatives at the conclusion of his fifth term in January 2025, Mooney continued his professional life as an American lobbyist and former elected official, drawing on his experience in both Maryland state politics and West Virginia’s federal delegation.