A former coal tycoon who served a prison sentence for allegedly contributing to a mine disaster that killed several miners is slowly becoming the dark horse in West Virginia’s crowded Republican Senate primary.
Don Blankenship, the former CEO of Massey Energy, is among the top Republican contenders for Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s Senate seat, according to a March 19 GOP-based poll. His rise in the Republican field comes shortly after he was convicted in 2015 of skirting safety regulations that led to the Upper Branch mine disaster in 2010.
He is holding his own against Republican opponents Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and West Virginia Rep. Evan Jenkins, who commissioned a poll in March showing Blankenship with 27 percent of the vote, just behind the incumbent congressman at 29 percent. Morrisey was in third place with only 19 percent.
Some of Blankenship’s early success can be chalked up to his willingness to blast regulators and Washington, D.C. He’s campaigning on a platform geared around blaming former President Barack Obama’s environmental rules targeting the coal industry.
“I have the knowledge and the means. I’ve done these types of things long before it could be said to be redemption,” he said in an interview with Politico Monday. “I do think D.C.’s very corrupt. I think we’ve got a real problem. My situation, I think, is another example of DOJ misbehavior, and I think eventually that will be proven.”
Blankenship, who manned the helm at Massey during the Upper Branch explosion is also trying to paint himself as a victim of Obama’s Department of Justice, the federal department involved in leveling charges against the energy king for his connection to the deadly mine disaster.
“In 2010, 29 Americans were killed. None were ambassadors, none were CIA agents, none were killed by terrorists,” a deep-voiced narrator can be heard saying in one of Blankenship’s campaign ads. “They were American coal miners killed when the U.S. government reduced their mine’s air flow. President Trump must be told the truth about Obama’s deadliest cover-up.”
His message is reaching Republican voters in West Virginia, a state President Donald Trump won by 68 percent. Gwen Skeens, a family member of one of the 29 miners killed in the 2010 mine explosion, doesn’t hold Blankenship responsible for the disaster and thinks he should be the one to take on Manchin.
“West Virginia needs him,” Skeens said during one of Blankenship’s campaign stops. She also claims he is a victim of persecution and a politically motivated prosecution. “The media, [the Mine Safety and Health Administration] and Senator Manchin all know they are misleading the public when they indicate all 29 families have negative feelings towards Don,” she said.
Blankenship, who supported then-candidate Trump’s presidential bid, said during the sentencing hearing that he is “not guilty of a crime.” He also told the families of the coal miners that they were “great guys, great coal miners.” Manchin, for his part, has dismissed Blankenship claims in the past.
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