The New York Times, citing three unnamed sources, reports that West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice will announce that he's leaving the Democratic Party and rejoining the GOP at a Thursday rally with Donald Trump; West Virginia’s Metro News soon confirmed the report. If Justice's move comes to pass, he'll give the Republicans control of the governor's office for the first time since Gov. Cecil Underwood lost in 2000. However, the state’s Republican-dominated legislature has always been able to override Justice's veto with just a simple majority, so this switch won’t represent any sort of sea change in West Virginia politics.

In fact, the move will simply bring Justice into closer alignment with Trump, a man he’s always shared deep similarities with, and praised just last week. Justice, a coal billionaire and the wealthiest man in West Virginia, had never run for office until last year, and in fact had been a registered Republican until shortly before launching his gubernatorial bid in 2015. Relying on his personal wealth and unusual appeal, Justice defeated Republican Bill Cole 49-42, even as Trump romped to a massive 68-26 victory on the very same day.

But even though Cole and his allies ran ads arguing both that a Cole victory would be a boon to Trump and that Justice was too close to unpopular national Democrats, it was actually Justice who had a decidedly Trump-like appeal. Both Trump and Justice built up cults of personality as outsider populist billionaires, which helped Justice reach out to Trump voters who were otherwise done voting for Democrats. Justice's indelible association with the state's totemic coal industry also made it tough for the GOP to caricature him as a typical Democrat.

However, Justice's reported party switch still comes as a surprise. Not only did D.C. Republicans spend plenty of money last year trying to defeat him, a group backed by the Democratic Governors Association shelled out $1.3 million to aid Justice. Justice has also spent his first months in office continually feuding with Republican legislators, calling the Senate majority leader a “poodle” and even dropping an actual pile of bull manure on a copy of the GOP’s budget when he vetoed it—because Republicans refused to raise taxes!

If Justice goes ahead with his reported switch, we'll see if it does anything to improve his relationship with the Republicans he’s been at war with all year. Given the bad blood, though, Justice, who’s up for re-election in 2020, could nevertheless find himself on the outs with his new party—a fate that’s befallen plenty of aisle-crossers before him.