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West Virginia leaders renewed calls for like-minded Virginians to join their neighbors across the Allegheny Front after voters approved a Democratic Party-favored 10-1 congressional map on Tuesday.
West Virginia’s 55 counties seceded from then-Confederate Virginia in June 1863 to remain with the United States. Since then, there have been varied calls for those in the old Commonwealth who believe they’ve lost their political voice to discover redder pastures.
West Virginia state Sen. Chris Rose, R-Morgantown, announced his “VEXIT” movement — a portmanteau of Virginia and British conservatives’ “BREXIT” bid — is inviting “every true Virginian to take those country roads home to Best Virginia.”
Rose said it is west of Richmond where “your Appalachian heritage, values, and freedom are still honored and protected.”
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In a statement, Rose said he watched “the swamp score another victory” on Tuesday as a “YES” vote passed to redistrict Virginia in favor of Fairfax County and the Richmond-Petersburg metro area.
Posting an image of the “Appeal to Heaven” flag to social media as used by then-Gen. George Washington during the Revolutionary War, Rose invited disaffected Virginians to consider becoming Mountaineers.
Much of what is now West Virginia abhorred or did not utilize slavery, and abolitionist John Brown famously led a raid against the federal armory in Jefferson County in what became the easternmost point in the Mountain State, hoping to spur a slave revolt.
Brown was ultimately hanged for treason in Charles Town in 1859, while the 1863 secession passed in the then-capital of Wheeling. Today, the two Virginias’ differences are largely based on urban-vs.-rural geopolitical divides and issues such as gun control and taxation.
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When asked, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey told Fox News Digital he is onboard with the “VEXIT” idea in that regard, saying that Charleston will welcome people and businesses looking for a better environment.
“West Virginia is open for business and is ready to welcome those freedom loving neighbors who were disenfranchised by the radical left this week,” Morrisey said.
“While the commonwealth is attacking democracy, hiking taxes, and reinstating woke nonsense, our shining state in the mountains offers hope and opportunity.”
The effort follows the introduction of a bill in Charleston to formally invite a several-hundred-mile swath of western Virginia counties — from Big Stone Gap up through Luray — as well as rural counties in Maryland’s panhandle, long represented in Congress by Democrats from the D.C. suburbs, to secede to West Virginia.
That move would likely provide West Virginia an additional congressional seat, as Reps. Riley Moore’s and Carol Miller’s districts currently split the state generally crosswise.
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Fox News Digital also reached out to current Sen. Jim Justice — who as governor championed similar ideas.
In 2020, Justice joined prominent Virginia preacher Rev. Jerry Falwell Jr. to push for “VEXIT” as the then-governor said Appalachian Virginia has more in common with West Virginia than denser parts of the commonwealth.
“If you’re not truly happy where you are, we stand with open arms to take you from Virginia or wherever you may be,” he said in Martinsburg, West Virginia, just a stone’s throw from Frederick County, Virginia.
Meanwhile, West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Charles Trump IV put forth a bill as a then-senator from Martinsburg arguing Frederick County should already be part of West Virginia.
The rural county at Virginia’s northern tip surrounds but does not include the otherwise bluer city of Winchester, and Trump said in his bill that counties formed from the original Frederick are part of the original West Virginia.
Hampshire County, which features the city of Romney, is considered West Virginia’s oldest county and was formed from greater Frederick to the east.
Trump’s bill requested that Frederick County voters consider joining West Virginia, citing an 1862 Virginia state law consenting to “Berkeley, Jefferson and Frederick” joining West Virginia. The other two form West Virginia’s eastern panhandle, but Frederick never acted and therefore still can.
Del. Gary Howell, R-Keyser, a proponent of the Trump-era effort told WVMetroNews that Virginians in the Shenandoah Valley and southwestward are culturally, demographically, and geographically similar to West Virginia.
“They share more with us than they do with Tidewater, Richmond and Northern Virginia. We look at it like, they’re coming home,” he said.
The issue also arose during the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial race, when Republican Winsome Sears pledged to create a “second governor’s office” west of the Blue Ridge Mountains to serve constituents she said are geographically closer to five other capitals and are forgotten by their own.
Indeed, lawmakers and locals in far southwestern Virginia toward Wise and Cumberland Gap have often said “Virginia ends at Roanoke” as far as Richmond is concerned.
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