West Virginia’s Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin should be one of the GOP's top offensive targets in a state that voted 68-26 for Trump, but national Republicans are increasingly fretful that disgraced coal baron Don Blankenship could take a plurality in the May 8 GOP primary and blow one of their best chances to flip a seat. Independent public polling of the GOP primary with Blankenship, Rep. Evan Jenkins, and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has been nonexistent, so it's hard to say where things stand in this race. However, recent internal polls from both Jenkins and Morrisey have shown Blankenship in second place and within striking distance of first, meaning he very well may have a real shot at winning the nomination.
Democrats would undoubtedly prefer to face Blankenship thanks to his criminal conviction and recent year-long prison sentence over his company violating federal mine safety laws, which led to the deaths of 29 miners in a 2010 mine disaster. While his awful record should give Jenkins and Morrisey plenty of ammunition to attack him, Politico reports some senior Republicans are worried a barrage of negative ads could backfire and turn Blankenship into a martyr in the eyes of zealous Trump-supporters who dislike GOP congressional leadership, much like what happened with Roy Moore in Alabama.
Making matters even worse for national Republicans, Blankenship isn't just some perennial gadfly like Moore; he has donated heavily to West Virginia Republicans during the last two decades, including when the party was still very weak at the state level during the 2000s. Furthermore, with both Jenkins and Morrisey in the running, national Republicans reportedly want to remain neutral between the two, which limits their options for how to deal with Blankenship.
Meanwhile, Blankenship has been using his vast personal fortune to run ads claiming his whole prosecution was a witch hunt by the Obama administration to cover up their failure to protect the dead miners, even though there's utterly no truth to this wild accusation. However, Blankenship likely can only help bolster his support by attacking Obama and Hillary Clinton, who are incredibly unpopular in this ancestrally Democratic state that has zoomed rightward over the last two decades in reaction to the increasing cultural and environmental liberalism of national Democrats.
Morrisey and Jenkins have yet to run attack ads against Blankenship or even begin spending heavily on positive ads. However, with only seven weeks until the primary, they'll soon have to make a choice about the best strategy to thwart him from winning the nomination.