National Review says West Virginia Republicans should back state attorney general Patrick Morrisey in Tuesday’s Senate primary because of his reputation as "a rock-solid, independent-minded conservative."
"He is the first Republican attorney general in West Virginia since the 1930s and has used his office to aggressively defend the state’s interests, particularly against the anti-coal crusade of the Obama-era EPA,” the conservative magazine’s editors wrote in an endorsement published Monday.
"His record is impeccable on abortion and guns, and everything else. He joined the threatened state lawsuit against DACA that helped convince the Trump administration to abandon the policy. … He is a nose-to-the-grindstone hard worker who we are confident would not be a time-server or wallflower should he make it to the Senate."
Morrisey's primary opponents are Rep. Evans Jenkins, who serves West Virginia's 3rd congressional district, and Don Blankenship, former chair and CEO of Massey Energy, one of the nation’s coal companies.
National Review calls Jenkins “conventional” and says a vote for Blankenship, who spent a year behind bars on a charge related to a deadly mine collapse, would "risk throwing away a winnable Senate race."