Patrick Morrisey wins West Virginia GOP primary for U.S. Senate

The Associated Press ^ | May 8, 2018 | AP

[Trump20162020]

BREAKING: State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey wins Republican primary in U.S. Senate race in West Virginia. Convicted ex-coal CEO Don Blankenship loses.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Thank God. Now we’ll see if West Virginians have had enough of Joe’s “talk like a conservative but vote with the liberals when it counts” routine.

[SVTCobra03]

The state Election Board’s recent annual count of registered voters on Jan. 15 found that Republicans made up 46.8 percent of registered voters, compared with 38.2 percent for Democrats and 14.8 percent for independents.

[Hostage]

No doubt that Manchin would use whatever dirt against Blankenship, true or not.

But not everyone believes those stories you describe are true. Many believe he was railroaded by Obama prosecutors in their war on coal.

https://youtu.be/X8xu547cxGo?t=175

WVA, home of corruption left behind by dead democrats like Byrd, is a state where democrats will falsely accuse you of killing your mother and have their union goons organize media to pound it into voters as fact.

[TallahasseeConservative]

Massey had a massive history of safety issues before he left. He didn’t care a whit about his men. I’m not saying the UMWA is great, but Blakenship certainly let safety lax.

[HamiltonJay]

He pulled nearly 20% of the vote and won 4 counties...

GOPe need to look themselves in the mirror and figure out why they are so out of touch that 1 in 5 voters would vote for this guy...

[HamiltonJay]

The breakdown by county is interesting. One took pretty much the entire south of the state the other the north with the felon getting 3 right in the middle and one southern. Seems to show a pretty significant divide in the power base of the 2 main candidates...

[Trump20162020]

“Squeaked in” by winning by nearly six full percentage points. Sure thing, buddy.

[Trump20162020]

Oklahoma is the only state in the country where Trump took every county

Wrong. Trump won every county in West Virginia too.

"Donald Trump easily won West Virginia, with 68.7% of the vote, giving him his largest margin of victory in the country."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_West_Virginia,_2016

[Hostage]

Sounds like you were a WVA coal miner or a local that knew WVA miners.

Democrats lie so much they believe their own lies, they spread lies and get entire groups to believe the lies.

I’m not in WVA so I won’t buy into anything, one side or the other.

I just don’t think Morrisey is a match for Manchin. What I saw in that debate is a candidate that is like a windup doll with a pull string to say stock phrases. He’s not popular among the broad WVA voter electorate. He won this primary with a plurality on a split 3-way ticket. Manchin is much smoother and more devious.

I am not having much hope for WVA. I hope to be surprised to the contrary because the President needs all the support he can get in the Senate.

[Hostage]

Plurality on a 3-way split ticket against weak or damaged candidates.

He’s not strong, not widely popular, not enough to call a slam dunk over Manchin.

[TallahasseeConservative]

I have family in the mines. UMWA is pretty conservative on energy policy and the rank and file would be either Republicans or old school Blue Dog Dems. When you knowingly send men into unsafe conditions time after time after time, then I have no use for you. MHSA can be overbearing on some issues, but when it comes to the men’s safety they are pretty on the ball. I don’t know whether or not Morrisey can win, but Blankenship would have zero chance.

[Hostage]

Morrisey took 35.6 percent of the GOP primary vote, very dismal.

Of all voters in this GOP primary, 64.4 percent voted for other candidates. I'm not excited.

The numbers do not create confidence. Against Manchin, Morrisey is a weak candidate. He lacks what it takes to achieve a sure win for this US Senate seat.

I suppose the Manchin camp could not be happier.

Manchin is the senior Senator in WVA, a state full of corrupt democrats, and Manchin knows how to tide them along.

Manchin is a native son, Morrisey is from New Jersey and is branded as a carpetbagger in the minds of WVA voters.

I hope the President hits the democrats so hard on corruption that it will affect voters everywhere, that democrat voters will be ashamed and stay home and that GOP and independents will swarm to vote out democrats everywhere. I would like to see Morrisey win but I force myself to see reality and reality is not looking good for WVA.

[Hostage]

> “When you knowingly send men into unsafe conditions ...”

That could be just a bunch of lies from democrat union goons who would never have a kind word for a company boss who is a republican.

Here’s what WVA voters with a sympathetic view of Blankenship see:

https://youtu.be/X8xu547cxGo?t=175

But in any event, Blankenship is history for this race. The focus is now on Morrisey and the picture is not looking good for Morrisey against Manchin.

Morrisey lost a US congressional race in New Jersey where he’s from. He gives most voters the impression he’ll say whatever he needs to say to get elected. To his credit, he’s a Trump supporter. That makes me happy but his appeal and his numbers make me sad.

[xzins]

Yep. Good news. The media will slam any repub, but an ex con convicted of complicity in the death of coal miners in W. Va. would have been a gift to them.

[NKP_Vet]

I think Manchin wins again. He acts republican to get elected and he’s did it for years. He says he’s Pro-Life, but he’s not, he says he’s for the 2nd Amendment, but he’s not. He claims he’s for marriage, but ran and hid when it was time to vote for it. He was elected to the senate saying he was against Obamacare, with a campaign ad show him using an Obamacare poster for target practice. He’s elected then votes to fund it. But the voters like him because they consider him a good ole boy, one of them. He’s from WV. Morrisey is a carpetbagger born in NYC and raised in New Jersey. Watch Manchin to be sent right back to the senate.

[Hostage]

Yep, that’s how I see it too.

If Obama’s ‘War on Coal’ hadn’t targeted and damaged coal mining company boss and republican Blankenship, Manchin would have another native son to go up against, one who is smarter business-wise than the rest of the field put together.

But Obama’s people railroaded him and hung him on a fake misdemeanor. Now he’s FUBAR for this go around at least. It’s telling, Blankenship beat all three felony charges yet those who listen or view the liar media including posters here on FR call Blankenship a convicted ‘felon’. Disinformation is still a potent weapon.

It’s shame WVA can’t get a strong clean native son or daughter to go up against weasels like Manchin. The tragedy is in the GOP. But my research reveals there are generational angst and hostility of WVA voters against anything republican. They elected Trump because Trump is not of the establishment republican mold, he’s an outsider and WVA voters, even democrats, couldn’t stand Hillary or Sanders.

There is hope however. If the Trump Administration can succeed in nailing corrupt democrats to the wall, democrat voters everywhere can be shamed into staying home. Low turnout gives candidates like Morrisey a chance to win.

[wardaddy]

You’re correct but what I find interesting is that West Virginia is 93 percent non Hispanic white and voted 68 percent Trump

Oklahoma is 67 percent non Hispanic white and voted 65% Trump

West Virginia has a fair number of white democrats looks like

Amazing considering Dems considered Democrat voting coal miners weren’t worth the electoral effort versus enviro wackos

[TallahasseeConservative]

Bullcrap. Miners were complaining about safety issue at Upper Big Branch Mine for years. In 2009 alone, Massey was issued 515 citations at UBB for safety violations. If anything, MHSA was lenient on Massey and Blakenship. They didn’t shut them down and didn’t issue a fine. Just because he’s a Republican doesn’t mean he’s a good guy. I’m no union goon, but Massey is a poor example to use as an example of Union and Government overreach.

[jonrick46]

I hope that Morrisey has, by this time, learned to successfully run a campaign. I perceive W. Virginia to be a swing state and, if Manchin’s star is falling, he is vulnerable. This is confirmed by Gallup polls which show Manchin underwater after posting a 17 point slide from last year — the largest drop of any senator. However, do not let this give Republicans a false security. This is a state the Republican Party must work very hard to win.

[Hostage]

> “Bullcrap”

West Virginians know better than you.

Everything you posted was part of the media and Obama smear job against those coal mines as part of their ‘War on Coal’.

It was the government that cut the airflow in half that formed the explosive mixture leading to the deaths of the miners. Obama’s government then piled on with cataloging safety violations from the past and adding more to it. The previous violations were addressed and responded to. The coal miners themselves had a very big part to address the concerns. That is what I read objectively in the background from miners themselves.

The democrat liar media was supported and prodded to focus on coal mines and to make them look unsafe, dirty, and not worth operating. The violations that piled on were part of the Obama War on Coal. Obama directed and approved for his administration to do whatever could be done to take down the coal industry. Obama himself predicted the coal industry would be bankrupted.

As Blankenship said in the debate and which is confirmed as true, the safety record of the mine that suffered the explosion and loss of life was incident-free for 17 years prior to the explosion and the explosion was caused by Obama’s inspectors cutting the airflow in half which occurred eight hours before the explosion. Blankenship’s lawyer fought the government in court over their felony charges that bits were not sharpened properly, sprays were plugged, that regardless it was necessary to have an explosive mixture which was shown in court to have been caused by government inspectors who were weaponized by Obama in his War on Coal.

It was shown in court that the government was at fault so they dropped the felony charges against Blankenship and fabricated a misdemeanor charge that he didn’t inform the miners that the government inspectors were at the mine.

The government tried to blame the workers but Blankenship wouldn’t allow that. They offered him a plea deal if he would agree that the miners were at fault and he wouldn’t go along with it. So they railroaded him into prison on a fake misdemeanor charge where he was the only misdemeanor convict in the prison, the rest were felons.

This episode is in the mode of Dinesh D’Souza, Joe Arpaio, and others that Obama targeted for prison. It was Obama, not Blankenship, that was the root of the conflict. All the bitching and moaning you describe from some of the miners is just typical union bitching. The violations you mention are Obama related. Often, selected members from democrat unions are used by union lawyers and liar media to raise a ruckus over conditions and negligent management. It’s what they do. It appears to be the case here.