The most recent polling in the West Virginia Senate primary shows state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in first place, encouraging the candidate to take a shot at his chief rival for spreading “junk polling.”
The survey conducted by Osage Research, commissioned by Morrisey and first obtained by the Washington Examiner, has the attorney general in first place with 24 percent of the vote, followed closely by coal baron Don Blankenship with 22 percent, and Rep. Evan Jenkins in third with 17 percent.
The primary will be held on May 8.
Pollsters surveyed 500 likely Republican primary voters earlier this week, generating a result with a +/- 4.38% margin of error less than two months before election day. Interestingly, support for Morrisey and Blankenship comes throughout the state while Jenkins support is pocketed in his home district.
It’s not unusual for candidates to bicker about internal polling. But the Morrissey survey comes as a direct rebuttal to Jenkins’ earlier claim that the contest was narrowing to a two-man race between himself and Blankenship, the former CEO of Massey Energy.
“Liberal Evan Jenkins has misled voters about his record repeatedly, from his support for cap-and-trade, which kills coal jobs, to his rallying for Hillary Clinton, to his votes for gun control,” Morrisey said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “It’s not surprising that Jenkins is now releasing junk polling.”
That polling put Jenkins ahead with 29 percent and has Morrisey fading into obscurity at just 19 percent. The dueling surveys and the intensity of what should be a sleepy primary show just what’s at stake: a shot at knocking over Democrat incumbent Sen. Joe Manchin.
While Democrats have taken special election victories to heart, most recently Conor Lamb’s win in Pennsylvania, they face an incredibly ugly Senate field. Manchin in particular is incredibly vulnerable in deep red West Virginia, a state Trump carried by double digits.
According to a recent Axios/Survey Monkey poll, Manchin is treading water. He is the second most vulnerable Democrat up for re-election in 2018.
When Manchin went head to head with an unnamed opponent in that poll, 52 percent picked the faceless Republican John Doe. This has encouraged Republicans, who hope to put the Mountain State’s last important Democratic official out to pasture for good.
