Don Blankenship Expected to Lose West Virginia GOP Primary

Don Blankenship is expected to lose the West Virginia Senate primary.

Before any projections on who won the West Virginia race came out, these projections on who lost it did:

Projection: Don Blankenship (R) loses #WVSEN primary.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) May 9, 2018

Don Blankenship will lose the West Virginia GOP Senate primary, CNN projects https://t.co/TfQoPLXjlJ

— Kyle Blaine (@kyletblaine) May 9, 2018

The race came down to three candidates in recent weeks: Congressman Evan Jenkins, WV Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, and former coal baron Blankenship. The winner of tonight’s West Virginia GOP primary race will go on to face Democrat Joe Manchin.

As of this posting, Fox News is projecting Morrisey has won.

The race got a lot of national attention in recent weeks thanks to Blankenship, who served a year in prison following a serious accident at one of his mines that killed 29 coal miners.

Blankenship went after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, and her father, whom Blankenship referred to as a “wealthy Chinaperson.”

Between that, Blankenship’s subsequent doubling-down on that phrase, and “Cocaine Mitch,” he’s come under a lot of national scrutiny and there were concerns that Blankenship winning the primary would hurt the GOP in the race against Manchin.

[image via screengrab]

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