Shelley Moore Capito

Capito, born Shelley Wellons Moore on November 26, 1953, in Glen Dale, West Virginia, grew up in a small town near Wheeling. Her father, Arch Moore, served three times as governor of West Virginia.⁠[1][2]

She received a B.S. in zoology from Duke University in 1975 and a master’s degree in education from the University of Virginia in 1976.⁠[1]

Capito worked as a career counselor and adviser at West Virginia State College (now West Virginia State University) and later directed the Educational Information Center of the West Virginia Board of Regents.⁠[1][2]

In 1996 Capito was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates, representing Kanawha County, and served from 1997 to 2001.⁠[1][2]

In 2000 Capito was elected to the U.S. House from West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District and served seven terms, from 2001 to 2015; she was the first Republican woman elected to Congress from West Virginia and, until the 2010 elections, the only Republican in the state’s congressional delegation.⁠[1][2][3]

In the House she served on the Financial Services Committee and chaired its Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit; she worked on highway safety, tax reform and the privacy rights of mortgage borrowers, as well as on community banks and transportation infrastructure such as Route 35.⁠[1][2]

She chaired the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues and, after an explosion that killed 29 coal miners, founded the Congressional Coal Caucus.⁠[3]

In the 2014 general election Capito won with 62.1% of the vote, defeating Democrat Natalie Tennant (34.5%), and succeeded Jay RockefellerJay RockefellerJay Rockefeller is an American Democratic politician and member of the Rockefeller family. In West Virginia he served successively as a member of the House of Delegates, secretary of state and the state’s 29th governor (1977–1985), and from 1985 to 2015 he represented West Virginia in the U.S. Senate, where he chaired the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and helped create the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).Open the full entry in the U.S. Senate, taking office in 2015 as the first woman elected to the Senate from West Virginia.⁠[3][1]

In the general election on November 3, 2020, Capito won with 70.3% of the vote, defeating Democrat Paula Jean Swearengin (27.0%) and carrying all 55 of the state’s counties.⁠[3][2]

On May 12, 2026, Capito won the Republican U.S. Senate primary with 66.5% of the vote, with state Sen. Tom Willis second at 18.9%; she had been endorsed by President Donald Trump, and the Associated Press called the race at 7:57 p.m.⁠[3][4]

After her win she said, “I’m honored by the trust the people of our state have placed in me.”⁠[4]

In the general election on November 3, 2026, Capito defeated Democratic nominee Rachel Fetty AndersonRachel Fetty AndersonRachel Fetty Anderson is a public interest attorney and Democratic politician from Morgantown, West Virginia, who served on the Morgantown City Council from 2017 to 2021; she was the Democratic nominee in West Virginia’s 2026 U.S. Senate election and lost to Shelley Moore Capito on November 3.Open the full entry to win a third Senate term; the Associated Press declared her the winner at 8:52 p.m. EST.⁠[5]

Capito chairs the Senate Republican Policy Committee, the fourth-ranking position in the Senate Republican leadership. In the 119th Congress (2025–2026) she chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, and serves on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the Rules and Administration committees.⁠[2][4][3]

She lives in Charleston, West Virginia, with her husband, Charlie.⁠[2]

Office of U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito: Official website: https://www.capito.senate.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

X: Public account: https://x.com/sencapito (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbiXdR4XQ3vD9Xp5lfR9QXw (opens in a new window).⁠[2]