The super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been revealed as the patron behind Mountain Families PAC, the nondescript super PAC launched to take down Don Blankenship in the Republican Senate primary in West Virginia.
In a Federal Election Commission filing, Mountain Families PAC reported Senate Leadership Fund as contributing the $1.4 million it used to fund attack ads targeting Blankenship during the primary campaign. The provocative energy executive who served prison time for his role in a mining disaster ultimately lost, finishing third behind winner Patrick Morrisey, the state attorney general, and Rep. Evan Jenkins.
But Blankenship put a scare into McConnell and other top Republicans who worried that the GOP would not be able to defeat Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., with him as the nominee. So they turned to Mountain Families PAC to stop him, using the generic super PAC, rather than SLF, to avoid a backlash against the GOP establishment. It was similar to the strategy Democrats employed to boost now-Sen. Doug Jones to victory in a special election in Alabama late last year.
Blankenship is now threatening to run in the general election as a third party candidate. However, West Virginia’s “sore loser” law would appear to prevent the wealthy coal baron from appearing on the November ballot, since he lost his bid for the Republican nomination in the May 8 primary contest.
During his Republican primary campaign, Blankenship referred to McConnell as “Cocaine Mitch.”
Senate Leadership Fund and its affiliated 501(c)4 nonprofit organization have raised a combined $58 million this cycle. SLF raised under $650,000 in April, a small sum compared to recent months, but should continue to raise money at a healthy clip given projections that Republicans could pick up Senate seats in the midterm despite an otherwise challenging political atmosphere for the party.
