Campaign

Blankenship concedes GOP Senate primary in W.Va.

by Ben Kamisar - 05/08/18 10:28 PM ET

Ex-convict and former coal executive Don Blankenship conceded his controversial Senate bid in West Virginia’s GOP primary on Tuesday night, with state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey poised for victory.

Blankenship’s defeat saves the GOP from what had been seen as a worst-case scenario for November, where Blankenship’s criminal past was considered a liability in a critical race against Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

“It didn’t work out,” Blankenship told the crowd at his election night party. “I feel very good about the effort we made, very bad about the fact that we failed West Virginia.”

Blankenship served one year in prison after being convicted of a misdemeanor charge related to a mine explosion where 29 people died.

As Washington Republicans tried to keep Blankenship from winning the primary, he turned the race into a referendum on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), assailing him as “Cocaine Mitch” and referring to his Chinese-American wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, as a “Chinaperson.”

Blankenship defended those attacks on Tuesday night, saying that he believes President Trump’s last-minute decision to call on voters to repudiate him could have turned the election.

“I am being asked, of course, whether some of the things we did, whether it’s ‘Cocaine Mitch’ or whether it’s some of the other criticisms of Mitch McConnell, whether it’s ‘Chinapeople’ that made the difference. I don’t think so,” he said.

“If there was any single factor, based on the polling of different times … it was probably President Trump’s lack of endorsement. … I don’t know what else it would have been unless the polls were way off,” he said.

McConnell’s team landed one final blow on Blankenship moments before his concession. His official account tweeted a photo of McConnell edited onto a promotional image for the Netflix series “Narcos,” which depicts the life of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, with the message “Thanks for playing, Don.”