Manchin is such an attention whore.
Possible Democrat nominees
- Ojeda
- Tennant
- Tomblin
- Gainer
- Goodwin (either)
- Kessler
- Perdue
- Any number of other former statewide electeds
- Any number of current or former state legislators
Any one of these people would comfortably win a primary against Blankenship without lifting a finger
Some random pension collecting former union member coal miner in Logan County would beat Blankenship.
From what I've heard from the folks up there, Blakenship is a lot more complicated than I think any of us understand. The man is personally loathed, but the movement he's vocalizing is stronger in WV than perhaps any other state.
Yes he's such a titan with such a powerful movement backing him he got a whole whopping ~20% in a GOP primary.
WV is weird in that the types of voters you need to win the state are all stuck in the Dem primary, even as they vote GOP in the general. The GOP primary is way out of step with the WWC base, the panhandle is still overrepresented in the voteshare. Justice's path is arguably the one that has the best chance of success for state govt contests if you are a populist Republican, like Blakenship.