Former coal CEO Don Blankenship spent roughly $100 a vote on a losing campaign for West Virginia senate, according to a Wednesday NBC report.
Blankenship, whose campaign became a thorn in the proverbial side of the GOP, spent $2,715,838 on airwaves and garnered only 27,414 votes, the report noted. The ex-con-turned politician also blamed President Donald Trump’s tweets for derailing his campaign.
Republicans feared their chances of defeating Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin would have been dashed if Blankenship won the primary. The former head of Massey Energy spent one year in prison for his alleged role in a mine disaster that killed 29 miners.
Some prepared to disavow him like the party to Roy Moore in Alabama in 2017. Moore’s campaign was torpedoed after a slew of women accused the former judge of sexually assaulting them when they were teenagers.
Trump even urged West Virginians before Tuesday’s election to vote for other Republican candidates, insisting in a tweet Blankenship cannot win the general election and to “remember Alabama.”
Blankenship rap up against controversies too. He called Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky “Cocaine Mitch” in campaign ads — a reference to a drug-smuggling bust on a ship owned by his father-in-law’s family. He has also used “Negro” and “China people” in ads targeting the Kentucky Republican while also arguing he was not making racially motivated appeals.
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