West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice says he’s switching parties to join the Republicans as President Donald Trump visited the increasingly conservative state.

Justice told about 9,000 Trump supporters at a rally in Huntington on Thursday night that he will be changing his registration Friday.

He says that he recently visited the White House twice with proposals on manufacturing and coal, that neither he nor Trump are politicians and they both ran to get something done.

Justice says Trump is his friend, a good man with real ideas who cares about West Virginians.

Trump says they spoke a few weeks ago about working together to open coal mines and create jobs in furniture manufacturing and other forms of manufacturing.

He says Justice showed the country their agenda “rises above left or right.”