WV Senate Race (with primary 5/8)

Politics & Elections
1

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is running for re-election this year. The interesting part is on the GOP side, where Don Blankenship, the mine operator whose willful violations of safety regs resulted in an explosion that killed 29 miners a few years back (and resulted in an all-too-short term in prison for Blankenship), is the leading candidate for the GOP nomination. His most significant opponents for the nomination are Rep. Evan Jenkins and WV Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.

As one WV Republican commentator said, “Alabama gave us Roy Moore. Now West Virginia’s saying ‘hold my beer.’”

The national GOP is scared that Blankenship will win the nomination and be an easy target for Manchin. Should be interesting.

2

Any win will be a good win. And it’s not like the GOP doesn’t have a habit of shooting itself in the foot by having extreme candidates win their nominations.

3

Ex-cons can run for Congress in WV?

4

They’ve got all sorts of laws in all sorts of states keeping felons from voting, but since the real point of those laws was to reduce the number of African-Americans who could vote, most of the states in question didn’t place similar restrictions on office-holding.

5

It still makes one heck of an attack. “Mr. Blankenship, how do you plan to vote this November?”

6

Voting rights are automatically restored in West Virginia after completion of parole/probation. Also, Blankenship was acquitted on the felony charges.

Otherwise this thread is full of good info. Lol.

7

The GOP should just endorse Manchin and refuse to fund a challenger.

8

Feel free to criticize my post directly, lol. :rolleyes:

9

There are lots of things that the Republicans should do.

10

The problem is that Blankenship isn’t a dead broke toxic candidate - he’s quite wealthy. Manchin’s last opponent only raised $1.6M.

11

But if he wins the primary, doesn’t he have the right to be on the ballot in the general as the Republican candidate?

12

There’s a difference between being on the ballot under a party’s listing, and being endorsed by that party. And there’s also a difference between being endorsed by the party, and getting funding from them. It’s rare that a party won’t endorse the winner of their own primary, but it has happened.

13

true, but disassociation and endorsement of the other candidate is pretty good protection from a toxic primary winner.

14

Maybe, but like I occasionally say, it’s not 1986 anymore. The GOP that would endorse a conservative Dem like Manchin over a walking disaster like Blankenship is a distant memory.

If Blankenship will vote their way all the time, and Manchin will only vote their way half the time, they want Blankenship, period. The fact that Blankenship is responsible for the deaths of 29 miners is of little concern to them in this calculus, except as a practical question of how to deal with the PR.

15

You mean like they did with Doug Jones? And with Hillary Clinton? You seem to have missed the memo that your party has wholly and completely gone off the deep end.