With five days to go before West Virginia Republicans choose a nominee to challenge Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in November, signs increasingly point to a win by State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in the six-candidate primary.
Only three contenders, however, are considered serious prospects for nomination.
Even before the televised debated last week, a Public Opinion Strategies poll among likely GOP voters showed Morrisey leading Rep. Evan Jenkins by 28 to 26 percent, with controversial multimillionaire Don Blankenship trailing with 12 percent.
A National Research Poll conducted for GOPAC yielded similar results: Morrisey 24 percent, Jenkins 20 percent, and Blankenship 15 percent.
“I think that voters are now realizing who the genuine conservative is — and who has the best chance of taking out [Manchin],” Morrisey told Newsmax.
Six years after he unseated the Mountaineer State’s Democratic attorney general in a dramatic upset, and two years after he won re-election in a landslide, Morrisey, 50, has become a hero of the state’s conservative grass-roots.
Morrisey took on the Obama administration and successfully sued its Environmental Protection Agency to stop the “Clean Power Plan” which clearly overstepped its boundaries to regulate greenhouse gases. In addition, Morrisey joined nine other state attorneys general to end the DACA amnesty granted by executive order.
“Patrick is one of us, and that’s why he’ll win,” said former state GOP Vice Chairwoman Lynn Staton.
National conservatives have also weighed in to make the Morrisey candidacy a “cause celebre” on the right. The Senate Conservatives Fund, Freedom Works, and the Tea Party Patriots have all endorsed Morrisey. So have Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, who will be in West Virginia Thursday campaigning for Morrisey.
As much as there is enthusiasm on the right for Morrisey, there is also distrust of Democrat-turned-Republican Jenkins and fear of a win by Blankenship — who spent 13 months in prison on one charge related to the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster (in which 29 miners were killed in a mine owned by Blankenship’s Massey Energy Company).
Jenkins, 57, who joined a Hillary Clinton for President rally in 2007 and backed Barack Obama until 2013, recently came out with unusual TV spots with an altered picture of 2016 Democratic nominee Clinton shaking hands with Morrisey.
The spot raised more than a few eyebrows, primarily because it never happened. Even Joe Trippi, longtime Democratic consultant, called the Jenkins ad “out there.”
Blankenship, who is pouring millions of his own fortune in a last-minute TV blitz, speaks unashamedly of his coal mine blowing up and of going to prison. In a bizarre mention he also refers to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as “Cocaine Mitch.”
“It looks like the trend is for Morrisey,” said veteran elections analyst Jay O’Callaghan, “Blankenship is too bizarre to win and Jenkins is a former Hillary Clinton supporter who now falsely accuses Morrisey of supporting Clinton.”
A sure thing is that the final five days of the primary will be among the hardest-fought — and nastiest — in any nomination battle this year.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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