West Virginia U.S. candidate Don Blankenship (R) told CBS News that he will not rule out a third party bid if Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R) wins the Republican nomination Tuesday night.
Said Blankenship: “I have not ruled out anything. I’ve said that I cannot let him win because of the opioid connection and planned parenthood connection.”
“There is growing concern among Republicans that Don Blankenship, a bombastic coal baron who has spent time in prison, is surging ahead of Tuesday’s West Virginia Senate primary — and a last-minute campaign is underway to stop him,” Politico reports.
“As the tight contest hurtles to a close, four Republicans said they’d reviewed polling conducted in recent days showing Blankenship… moving narrowly ahead of his more mainstream GOP rivals, Rep. Evan Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.”
In case you missed it, Blankenship’s latest ad is unreal.
This ad from West Virginia U.S. Senate candidate Don Blankenship (R) is unreal.
Rep. Evan Jenkins (R), who is running for U.S. Senate in West Virginia, is running an ad showing primary opponent Patrick Morrisey (R) shaking hands with Hillary Clinton — something that never happened, Yahoo News reports.
“The ad uses a manipulated version of a photograph that originally showed his rival shaking the hand of someone else: President Trump.”
The Atlantic: The era of fake video begins.
David Byler: “And nobody knows who is going to win. There’s almost no polling. Fox News has fielded the only public poll of this race, and it put Jenkins ahead of Morrisey and Blankenship, each getting 25, 21 and 16 percent of the vote respectively. That’s a good sign for Jenkins—it’s always better to be ahead in polls than to be behind —but it’s not a guarantee. It’s just one poll and almost 40 percent of respondents were either undecided or voting for one of the lesser-known candidates. Jenkins is ahead, but one poll simply isn’t enough to make a confident projection.”
West Virginia Senate hopeful Don Blankenship is intensifying his offensive against Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, calling him “Cocaine Mitch” in a new TV ad released just over a week until the Republican primary.
“Blankenship… offers no context for the jab. But he may be referring to a 2014 report in the liberal Nation magazine that drugs were once found aboard a shipping vessel owned by the family of McConnell’s wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.”
A Democratic super PAC is boosting its spending against Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-WV) in an effort to prop up Don Blankenship’s (R) campaign for the GOP nomination to take on Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the Washington Examiner reports.
West Virginia U.S. Senate candidate Don Blankenship (R) questioned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) marriage to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, suggesting the Senate leader faced a conflict of interest in foreign relations since Chao’s father is “a wealthy Chinaperson,” the New York Times reports.
He added that “there’s a lot of connections to some of the brass, if you will, in China.”
Said Blankenship: “I read in books that people think he’s soft on China.”
A new Fox News poll in West Virginia finds Evan Jenkins (R) leads the GOP Senate primary with 25% among likely primary voters, followed by Patrick Morrisey (R) at 21% and Don Blankenship (R) at 16%.
A National Research Inc. poll in West Virginia finds Patrick Morrisey (R) leading the GOP Senate primary with 24%, followed by Evan Jenkins (R) with 20% and Don Blankenship (R) at 12%. Thirty-nine percent were undecided.
This is quite an ad for West Virginia U.S. Senate candidate Don Blankenship (R).
“A brewing fight between West Virginia GOP Senate candidate Don Blankenship and national Republicans spilled into the open Monday when the coal baron compared Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell to Russians interfering in his state’s election,” Politico reports.
Said Blankenship” “McConnell should not be in the U.S. Senate, let alone be the Republican Majority Leader. He is a Swamp captain.”
He added: “The Russians and McConnell should both stop interfering with elections outside their jurisdictions. West Virginians are aware that McConnell cannot vote in their election. They want him to mind his own business and do his job. A job he has not done now for over 30 years. Balance the budget Mitch and stay out of West Virginia.”
“The Republican establishment has launched an emergency intervention in the West Virginia Senate primary aimed at stopping recently imprisoned coal baron Don Blankenship from winning the party’s nomination,” Politico reports.
“Late last week, a newly-formed super PAC generically dubbed the ‘Mountain Families PAC’ began airing TV ads targeting Blankenship, who spent one year behind bars following a deadly 2010 explosion at his Upper Big Branch Mine. The national party isn’t promoting its role in the group but its fingerprints are all over it.”
“In many parts of the country, Republican candidates are trying to put distance between themselves and President Trump. In the Indiana Senate primary, the bruising fight is over which candidate is the more authentically Trumpian,” the New York Times reports.
“As the May 8 primary election approaches, the race here has taken a nasty turn, with candidates attacking one another as insufficiently aligned with the president, or way too late to Team Trump. Some Republicans worry that the tenor has the potential to bloody the winner so badly that he will be weakened in the general election contest against Sen. Joe Donnelly, one of this election year’s most vulnerable Democrats.”
“The Indiana primary is among several, including those in West Virginia and Wisconsin, where Republicans are locked in nominating battles in states Mr. Trump won in 2016 and where the party has hoped to add to its slender two-seat majority.”
“Most of us should be in jail for the things we do. We just haven’t been caught. No one’s gone after us.”
— West Virginia GOP county chairwoman Becky Deitch, quoted by Politico, explaining why she supports Don Blankenship’s (R) U.S. Senate bid even though he went to prison for the deaths of 29 coal miners.
“National Republicans — on the heels of the Roy Moore and Rick Saccone debacles — worry they’re staring down their latest potential midterm election fiasco: coal baron and recent federal prisoner Don Blankenship,” Politico reports.
“With Blankenship skyrocketing in the West Virginia Republican Senate primary and blanketing the airwaves with ads assailing his fractured field of rivals as career politicians, senior party officials are wrestling with how, or even whether, to intervene. Many of them are convinced that Blankenship, who served a one-year sentence after the deadly 2010 explosion at his Upper Big Branch Mine, would be a surefire loser against Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin — and potentially become a national stain for the party.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) told colleagues “that he intended to run for re-election this year after all, ending an anxiety-making flirtation with retirement and easing Democratic fears that the most conservative Democrat in the Senate was about to effectively hand his seat to a Republican,” the New York Times reports.
Said Manchin: “I’ve said this point blank: If people like me can’t win from red states, you’ll be in the minority the rest of your life.”
Former Massey Energy chief executive officer Don Blankenship (R) plans to run for U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), WCHS reports.
Blankenship served a one-year sentence in prison for “conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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