Running in W.Va., coal titan lives near Vegas, served in prison
Don Blankenship is running in West Virginia’s May 8 primary for a shot at the U.S. Senate seat now held by Democrat Joe Manchin. A Republican loyalist of President Donald Trump, the former coal-mining executive served prison time for his role in a mining explosion that killed 29 men.
KEYSER, W.Va. — Don Blankenship is running for the U.S. Senate as a proud West Virginian with Appalachian roots, but his primary residence is a $2.4 million villa with palm trees and an infinity pool near Las Vegas.
Blankenship, a Republican loyalist of President Donald Trump, is running an “America First”-style campaign and calls himself an “‘American competitionist,” but he admires China’s state-controlled economy and has expressed interest in gaining Chinese citizenship.
The former coal-mining executive is widely known for spending a year in prison for his role in a mining explosion that claimed 29 lives. Yet ahead of the May 8 primary election, he is Blankenship’s primary home isn’t in West Virginia, but rather this $2.4 million villa just outside Las Vegas. He bought it with cash in 2016. It’s a six-bedroom, eight-bath mansion with marble floors and a dolphin sculpture beside the pool.
running as a champion of miners and has bought TV ads that challenge settled facts about his role in the disaster.
And even as Blankenship seeks to join the Republican majority in Washington, a super PAC linked to the party establishment is
attacking him as a “convicted criminal” and a hypocrite.
No Republican candidate in the 2018 midterms embodies so many contradictions as pointedly as Blankenship, who was found guilty of conspiracy to violate mine-safety standards in federal court and yet has plenty of supporters in coal country.
He is one of three leading Republican contenders heading into the primary, even though he is lugging around enough political baggage to disqualify a candidate most anywhere else.
That Blankenship retains a political hope is a consequence of West Virginia’s sharp shift to the right, driven by seething hostility to the Obama presidency, both its social changes and its perceived “war” on coal. The emergence of a former coal boss with a criminal record as a potential Senate nominee seems partly an expression of many West Virginia voters’ desire to poke a thumb in the eye of the Washington establishment, Republicans very much included.