That’s an unfair way to try to pigeonhole the point, as if the partisan make up of the Senate delegation makes a state “red” or “blue”.
And it is especially not to the point because Jay Rockefeller has served in the Senate, if my memory is correct, since sometime in the mid’80’s. Byrd’s tenure began sometime in the 1800’s. So...that’s not all that apt.
I do believe the state had a Republican governor sometime during the Bush years. And as already noted, Bush won the state twice.
It is not a blue state.
It is not a red state.
It is somewhere in between.
And Manchin is going to lose.
(WV reminds me of a salty friend I have who once told me, “I may not be a Republican. But I damn sure ain’t no Democrat!” So long as the Democrat party is the Obama party, I would wager that WV will say, loudly and clearly, I DAMN SURE AINT NO DEMOCRAT!)
It was Raese whom Rockefeller defeated in 1984, even as WV went for Reagan.