McConnell urged Trump to speak out against Blankenship: report

President Trump’s plea for West Virginia Republicans to reject the Senate candidacy of former mining CEO Don Blankenship came at the urging of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), The New York Times reports.

McConnell urged the president in a phone call to speak out against Blankenship, a Republican official familiar with the call told the Times.

A White House official said Trump and McConnell spoke about Blankenship and the West Virginia Senate race, but added that the president was already planning to weigh in with a tweet days before the conversation.

Trump on Monday tweeted that Blankenship — who spent a year in prison for a mine safety violation after a fatal mine explosion — can’t win in the general election. He also suggested he does not want a repeat of the Alabama special Senate election, which saw Democrat Doug Jones defeat Republican Roy Moore in the deep-red state.

To the great people of West Virginia we have, together, a really great chance to keep making a big difference. Problem is, Don Blankenship, currently running for Senate, can’t win the General Election in your State…No way! Remember Alabama. Vote Rep. Jenkins or A.G. Morrisey!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 7, 2018

Blankenship responded by saying that he is “Trumpier than Trump” and that the president doesn’t know him or understand how flawed his primary opponents are.

Internal Republican polls have Blankenship in the lead just one day before the West Virginia Senate primary, spurring national Republicans to make an eleventh-hour push against him.

An internal poll from one of Blankenship’s rivals had the ex-coal CEO slightly ahead, with 31 percent of the vote. Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-W.Va.) had 28 percent of the vote and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey was in third place with 27 percent of the vote.

On Monday, Blankenship touted his own internal poll that gave him 37 percent of the vote to Morrisey’s 20 percent and Jenkins’s 15 percent.

{mosads}

Blankenship attacked the Washington establishment and McConnell in particular to argue that to “drain the swamp” West Virginia should elect him, “the most anti-establishment candidate in America.”

“You should know me by my enemies. [Former President] Barack Obama, [Sen.] Joe Manchin [D-W.Va.] and Mitch McConnell. They are the enemies of Making West Virginia Great Again” he said.

Blankenship has also dubbed McConnell “cocaine Mitch” and in one TV ad targeted the senator’s “China family.”

The family of McConnell’s wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, emigrated from China and founded an international shipping company.

– Jordan Fabian contributed.