Don Blankenship, 68, was CEO of the Massey Energy Company, sixth largest coal company in the U.S., headquartered in West Virginia, from 2000 until he retired in 2010, with millions of dollars. Now he’s in a nip-and-tuck battle to win the state’s Republican nomination to run against Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in November. The GOP primary is May 8.
Blankenship brings some special baggage to the race, which has national Republican officials’ knees knocking in trepidation. Blankenship retired as a result of a major coal catastrophe in his state, under his leadership. Massey’s Upper Big Branch coal mine exploded on April 5, 2010, killing 29 miners, the worst coal mine disaster since 1970.
The attention of investigators, including at the federal government’s Mine Safety and Health Administration, part of the Department of Labor, quickly focused on Blankenship’s leadership, as he was notorious for pushing cost controls. Critics said his focus on costs came at the expense of miner safety. MSHA concluded that the explosion was the result of a buildup of explosive methane gas because of defects in the mine’s ventilation system, which Massey covered up when inspectors visited the mine. Blankenship said the explosion was the result of a natural earthquake nearby.
In 2013, he faced a blizzard of felony charges related to the explosion. A federal grand jury indicted him in late 2014 for conspiracy to violate federal mine safety standards and a jury in 2015 found him guilty of one misdemeanor charge. He served a year in jail, ending in 2017. Blankenship has insisted that the charges and conviction were bogus, trumped up by the Obama administration’s MSHA and Manchin, because of Blankenship’s Republican political activities, including financial support.
Six months after leaving prison, in November 2017, Blankenship filed to run for the Senate against Manchin, a popular Democrat in the scarlet red state. Among other Republicans, he faces a congressman from the third district, the heart of the state’s coal country, and the state’s attorney general. It has emerged at a three-way race, with little separating the three. Thirty percent of the primary vote could win the nomination.
Politico reported this week, “With Blankenship skyrocketing in the West Virginia Senate primary and blanketing the airwaves with ads assailing his fractured field of rivals as career politicians, senior party officials are wrestling with how, or even whether, to intervene. Many of them are convinced that Blankenship, who served a one-year sentence after the deadly 2010 explosion at his Upper Big Branch Mine, would be a surefire loser against Democrat Sen. Manchin – and potentially become a national stain for the party.”
The national GOP had targeted Manchin as vulnerable, as New York magazine reported. The state is Trump country, with the president knocking off Hillary Clinton by 69/26, Trump’s largest margin of any state. His poll numbers remain solid, at 61 percent, the highest in the nation.
But Manchin is formidable, with job approval at the end of Trump’s first year in office at 52/36. A moderate to conservative Democrat, he worked his way up in politics through serving in the state legislature, and eventually governor, before joining the U.S. Senate in 2010 (filling the seat in a special election after the death of the legendary Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd). He won a full term in 2012.
Manchin, 71, and Blankenship first clashed in 2005, when Blankenship and Massey sued Manchin when the governor increased scrutiny on Massey’s coal operations because of Blankenship’s political activities in the state. They have been mortal enemies since.
Popular and respected West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kercheval wrote recently, “At first, Blankenship’s entry into the race seemed like a lark, a way for Blankenship to advance his claim that investigators missed the real cause of the UBB disaster and that Manchin and Barack Obama engineered his prosecution.
However, Blankenship has evolved into a full-fledged candidate, well-financed and driven. He has already spent more than $1 million of his own money and has enough personal resources to spend much more. He’s traveling across the state, holding town hall meetings.”
— Kennedy Maize