CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — An election official has blocked former coal executive Don Blankenship’s bid to run in West Virginia’s U.S. Senate race as the Constitution Party’s nominee.
News outlets report Secretary of State Mac Warner announced Thursday that he won’t approve Blankenship’s candidacy application, based on the state’s “sore loser” law. The law prohibits major party primary candidates who lose from switching to a minor party. Blankenship finished third in the Republican primary.
Blankenship’s campaign has said it will “vigorously challenge” any denial of his efforts to be on the November ballot with Republican Patrick Morrisey and incumbent Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.
Blankenship is a former CEO of Massey Energy, which owned a mine where a 2010 explosion killed 29 miners. He spent a year in federal prison for violating safety regulations.
Bummer, splitting the lunatics off on election day would have been hilarious. Not to mention how much I enjoyed his campaign ads.
Blankenship’s supporters need not stand for this, and must show their support by staying home election day and smoking a carton of Winstons.
Teehee.
The reality is, this man should be forever placed in a hermetically sealed chamber sucking up coal dust for the rest of his life.
All states should have a law that restricts any convicted criminal from running for office. And btw, he should have been charged with a felony. How he ever managed to get off on a misdemeanor and only serve one year in prison is what’s most outrageous about him. He’s a fucking murderer!
He should not be running for a government job where the first thing he’d do is enrich himself, and last thing he’d do is the actual grunt work of public service.
Just to pre-empt the inevitable “Joe Manchin is not progressive enough” comment I wanted to put this here.
According to the handy 538 “Trump score”, Manchin is 6th best in the Senate in terms of the difference between how often he votes with Trump and how much one would predict he would vote with Trump based on the 2016 margin in his state, between Tammy Baldwin (#7) and Doug Jones (#5).
If it takes votes away from the Republican, then I fully support Blankenship’s candidacy.
Go Blanky!!!
Hey, rhymes with Spanky!!!