By james art 
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — On Tuesday, West Virginians will choose between a Republican gubernatorial candidate backed by former President Donald Trump, who has defended abortion restrictions in court, and a Democratic mayor who is fighting to put the issue on the ballot. voters to decide.
Both Attorney General Patrick Morrissey and Huntington Mayor Steve Williams have played huge roles in combating the drug crisis in the state with the highest rate of opioid overdose deaths in the country. But their similarities are few.
When it comes to abortion, the two couldn’t be more different.
Since being elected attorney general in 2012, Morrissey, 56, has litigated opioid manufacturers and distributors, winning about $1 billion to ease a crisis that has left 6,000 children living in foster care in a state of about 1 .8 million.
A self-described “conservative fighter,” Morrissey also uses his role to lead on issues important to the national Republican Party. They include defending a law that bars transgender youth from participating in sports and a scholarship program passed by lawmakers that would incentivize parents to withdraw their children from traditional public school and enroll them in private education or home schooling.
Key to his candidacy is his role in defending a near-total abortion ban passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2022 and going to court to limit West Virginians’ access to the abortion pill.
In a statement after a US District Court judge blocked access to abortion pills in 2023, Morrissey pledged to “always stand up for the lives of the unborn.”
Former Huntington city manager and House of Delegates member Williams, 60, has worked to change his city from the “epicenter of America’s heroin epidemic” to one known for solutions to help people with substance use disorders .
After being elected mayor in 2012, he created the state’s first city office for drug control policy and created a strategic plan that included equipping first responders with the opioid overdose reversal drug Naloxone and implementing court diversion programs for sex workers and people who use drugs.
Abortion is a key part of his campaign platform. Earlier this year, Williams collected thousands of signatures on a petition to get lawmakers to vote to put abortion on the ballot.
West Virginia is in the middle 25 states that they do not allow civil initiatives or statewide ballot constitutional amendments, a path of direct democracy that has allowed voters to bypass their legislatures and preserve abortion and other reproductive rights in several states over the past two years.
Republicans have repeatedly rejected the idea of putting an abortion-rights measure before voters, which in West Virginia is a step only lawmakers can take.
The Republican leadership pointed to a 2018 vote in which just under 52 percent of voters supported a constitutional amendment that would have denied access to abortion in the state. But Williams said the vote also has to do with state funding for abortions, which someone can oppose without wanting access completely eliminated.
If elected, Morrissey would become only the third Republican elected to a first term as West Virginia governor since 1928. Outgoing two-term Gov. Jim Justice, now a Republican, was first elected as a Democrat in 2016. He switched parties months later at a Trump rally.
Polling stations across the country open at 6:30am and close at 7:30pm