The state GOP can’t seem to find a decent candidate to run against Manchin. The last one Morrissey had won state wide office twice - AG. Superficially he looked like a good choice. However he had some huge chinks in his armour vis-a-vis Manchin. He tried to be the non-professional politician candidate, except its clear he came to WV to have a political career. (He ran for Congress in either Maryland or NJ before coming to WV. I forget which !) He and his wife were both drug industry lobbyists (Wife still is!). At that time the drug industry was not popular because of rising prices and rightly or wrongly blamed for the opioid epidemic. (Still isn’t popular!) Morrissey as AG got two successful prosecutions of drug distributers but people didn’t like the punishment, felt it was too lenient. Rightly or wrongly they blamed the soft punishment on Morrissey’s drug industry ties. Then there’s the fact he’s an out-of-stater. Manchin played the native son card hard ! Manchin played football at WVU. Manchin got WVU sport legends like Jerry West & Don Nehlen to cut commercials. Manchin’s entire campaign was “I was born & raised here And you weren’t !”. The other problem - Morrissey is boring as a speaker & comes across that way on TV.!
Thanks for good info. But certainly there has to be more than one conservative in WVA who could successfully run against Manchin