{"id":63364,"date":"2018-04-18T04:45:08","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T04:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=63364"},"modified":"2018-04-18T04:45:08","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T04:45:08","slug":"gop-fears-rise-west-virginia-senate-fiasco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/gop-fears-rise-west-virginia-senate-fiasco.html","title":{"rendered":"GOP fears rise over West Virginia Senate fiasco"},"content":{"rendered":"

GOP fears rise over West Virginia Senate fiasco<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Senate Republicans are escalating their attacks on West Virginia Senate GOP candidate Don Blankenship, increasingly worried that the coal baron and ex-prisoner will blow a winnable race against Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.<\/span><\/p>\n

Republicans see West Virginia as a prime pickup opportunity in November, given President Donald Trump\u2019s huge popularity there. But they say the multimillionaire Blankenship, running in a tight three-way primary against Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-W.Va.) and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, is indefensible as a candidate after serving a year in prison for conspiring to violate mine safety violations. Twenty-nine miners died at his company\u2019s Upper Big Branch mine in 2010.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWasn\u2019t he convicted of a crime?\u201d Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas said in an interview Tuesday. \u201cThat sort of background doesn\u2019t lend itself to public office, in my view. Being convicted of a crime is a real liability.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As the race gets closer, alarms are going off in Senate leadership suites. At a Monday evening Senate Republican leadership meeting, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) focused on Blankenship\u2019s weakness, explaining to other Republicans that the former coal magnate would be difficult for the party to defend in the state, according to attendees.<\/span><\/p>\n

He specifically referenced accusations that Blankenship\u2019s companies contaminated drinking water. A case involving the issue was settled with West Virginia residents, though Massey Energy, which Blankenship led, admitted no wrongdoing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not popular in West Virginia,\u201d Gardner told leaders gathered in McConnell\u2019s office, referring to the contamination claims.<\/span><\/p>\n

The situation between Blankenship and national Republicans is growing more fraught by the day. Last week, a super PAC apparently controlled by national interests blasted Blankenship with the allegations about contaminating the state\u2019s drinking water at the same time he built a private water supply for his home. Blankenship hit back Monday in a scathing statement likening Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to the Russians, interfering in an election outside his jurisdiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cornyn and other top Republican senators continued the tit-for-tat this week. And the famously strategic McConnell wryly claimed he doesn\u2019t \u201cpay a lot of attention to these primaries,\u201d before throwing a jab at Blankenship.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll wait to see who the nominee is and get behind a Republican candidate. And hopefully it will be one who is actually electable,\u201d McConnell said Tuesday, which he later called a \u201csubtle hint\u201d about his preference in the primary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Jenkins and Morrisey are beating up each other ahead of the May 8 primary. Morrisey released an ad on Tuesday attacking Jenkins\u2019 \u201cliberal Democrat record,\u201d while Jenkins has focused on Morrisey receiving campaign money from the pharmaceutical industry, an attack that resonates in a state wracked by opioid addiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Officially, Senate Republicans aren\u2019t intervening in the race out of fear it would aid Blankenship’s bid to portray himself as an outsider taking on the corrupt establishment. But privately, Blankenship is a hot topic among GOP leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of wild out there. I don\u2019t think he will [win]. I certainly hope one of the other candidates does, because I think he would be obviously a challenged candidate going into the fall,\u201d said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 GOP leader.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Monday, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a McConnell ally, met with a small group of donors in New York City. She described the primary as extremely close for candidates Blankenship, Jenkins, and Morrisey. And, according to one person who was present, she said that Republicans were concerned that should Blankenship win the nomination, Manchin would walk over him in a general election.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an interview on Tuesday, Capito said she would not endorse in the primary and said \u201cit\u2019s really hard to predict\u201d who will win. Limited public polling in the race has indicated that all three candidates are in contention and there is no favorite.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tightening up, by all indications. And I think that\u2019s going to heighten the interest of a lot of Republican and independent voters in the state and I think that\u2019s a good thing,\u201d Capito said.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise GOP senators are searching for a silver lining, because they find themselves in a nearly impossible position in the West Virginia race.<\/span><\/p>\n

During last year\u2019s Alabama Senate race, the national party \u2014 led by the McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund super PAC \u2014 spent millions of dollars in an unsuccessful effort to stop former state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore from winning the nomination. The barrage failed, with Moore portraying himself as a victim of a GOP establishment bent on taking him down \u2014 a message that resonated with the state\u2019s conservative voters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moore beat former Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.), but then lost to Democrat Doug Jones, shaving a seat off the Senate GOP\u2019s already thin majority. Thune admitted that the GOP getting directly involved in West Virginia would \u201cprobably\u201d help Blankenship similarly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI still think in the end people are discerning enough that they\u2019ll figure this out. Obviously we\u2019ll want to have a good candidate out there that will run a good race in the fall,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, Republican leaders are taking a more guarded approach. They have refused to take credit for the recently launched, anti-Blankenship ad by the so-called Mountain Families PAC. Yet their fingerprints are all over the generically titled group, which has enlisted a team of veteran Republican strategists who have worked closely with Senate Leadership Fund in the past. The super PAC\u2019s ad-making firm, McCarthy Hennings Whalen, has also done work for McConnell.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump appeared at an event in West Virginia this month and sat next to Jenkins and Morrisey. Blankenship did not attend. Senate Republicans privately said they hope Trump will attack Blankenship if upcoming polls show he could win.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blankenship, meanwhile, is taking a page out of the Moore playbook. In a scathing statement Monday, he derided McConnell as the \u201cSwamp captain\u201d of D.C., said he was wrongly accused in the mine explosion and compared McConnell to a Russian interloper.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWest Virginians are aware that McConnell cannot vote in their election,\u201d Blankenship said. \u201cThey want him to mind his own business and do his job.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2018\/04\/17\/west-virginia-senate-blankenship-republicans-530492<\/span><\/p>\n

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