For years, the most popular politician in West Virginia, hands down, was Joe Manchin. Twice elected governor, the centrist Democrat is now running for re-election as the Mountain State’s senior senator.

In 2016, however, Manchin’s mantle was passed to Donald Trump, who carried the state by 42 percentage points over Hillary Clinton. The president remains nearly as popular today as he was on the last Election Day, and as the West Virginia Senate race approaches the post-Labor Day home stretch, the question is whether the Trump mystique will be enough to send Manchin into early retirement.

He delivered a clear message on Tuesday during his sixth visit to the state as president -- and one unlikely to work in Manchin’s favor as he extolled the incumbent’s opponent, Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. The president said at a rally in Charleston that a vote for Morrisey is a vote for his own agenda and a vote for Manchin is a vote for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

“This November, voters in West Virginia will face a very simple choice. A vote for Patrick Morrisey is truly a vote to ‘Make America Great Again,’” Trump said. “And I like Joe, but Joe doesn’t vote. He just doesn’t vote for us. It’s a vote for Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, [and] their new leader, Maxine Waters.” The audience booed loudly at the mention of the Democratic leaders and the California congresswoman, who has long called for the president’s impeachment -- and has been the recipient of his ire.

Trump also reminded the audience of Manchin’s vote against some of his key agenda items, including Obamacare repeal, the Republican tax plan and the border wall. He said it’s clear that Schumer is “the boss” and Manchin “votes against the people of West Virginia.”

The president -- who steered clear of commenting on the verdicts rendered yesterday in criminal cases against his former campaign manager and his personal attorney -- also tried to drive home the point that this election is a fight for the majority in Congress and a loss will deal a major blow to his administration. “So when you cast your ballot for Congress in November, you’re not just voting for a candidate. You’re voting for which party controls the House and which party controls the Senate,” he said. The president also said that he’ll be coming back to West Virginia before the election and hinted that he may do some trips without the Secret Service.

“With all the Secret Service and all – they’re fantastic people -- but it sort of holds you back. Maybe sometimes I’ll just make a few trips without them,” he said as the audience cheered.

Morrisey also spoke at the rally, voicing his enthusiastic support for the president, and even used a well-known Trump phrase. “West Virginia needs to send a conservative fighter to the U.S. Senate to help drain that swamp,” he said.

The president has praised Morrisey before – he endorsed him on Twitter ahead of the competitive GOP primary race in May. Yet, once the campaign settled into a two-man contest, the attorney general has failed to eclipse Manchin’s lead. RealClearPolitics’ poll average shows the incumbent leading by seven points and two of the last three polls all show him leading by a double-digit margin. Political strategists familiar with West Virginia predict that this race will tighten, however, mainly because Morrisey has the president in his corner.

“No one has the kind of spark that Trump has here,” said Bill Bissett, president of the Huntington Chamber of Commerce. “It really has to be him to be effective.” As a sign of Manchin’s residual strength, the Republican-leaning chamber has yet to make an endorsement in the race. Bissett said that chamber officials met with Morrisey this week and are still considering their options before endorsing. He added that Manchin does benefit from higher name identification among voters, and that a high percentage of West Virginians have had positive personal interactions with the senator.

To counter this advantage in retail politics, West Virginia Republicans are telling reporters – and voters -- that Manchin has already shown he’s not on the president’s side. Morrisey, they say, is the only one who will support the Trump agenda, as he asserted on Tuesday night.

“On many key votes that people of West Virginia support, Sen. Manchin frankly has not been there,” said Colton Henson, a political consultant who works in the state. Manchin notably voted against the Republican tax cut bill and remains undecided on whether he’ll support Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Democrats counter this line of argument by portraying Morrisey as a Washington – rather than West Virginia – insider. “He says the right things. He just doesn’t have the credentials that Joe Manchin has, being a lifelong West Virginian,” Democratic strategist Mike Plante told RCP. “Patrick Morrisey’s profile as a high-paid lobbyist in Washington, who has made major bucks from the pharmaceutical industry in a state that’s been so hard hit by the opioid crisis…I think that’s turned them off.”

Actually, allegations of questionable ties to Big Pharma have dogged both candidates. West Virginia had the highest number of opioid deaths per capita in 2016, with over 700 people dying primarily from synthetic opioids and heroin, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The number of synthetic opioid deaths alone has quadrupled since 2010. The issue became prevalent during the presidential campaign as Trump gained wide support in the Rust Belt areas hit hardest by the crisis. The president has since created the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis to assess ways to combat the epidemic.

The liberal political action committee American Bridge 21st Century slammed Morrisey over the summer for accepting donations from some of the pharmaceutical companies that make pain-killing opioids. “Patrick Morrisey is promising West Virginians he’ll ‘drain the swamp.’ What he’s not telling them is that he’s the swampiest of them all — perpetuating the ‘broken system’ he’s decried and accepting donations from lobbyists for the Big Pharma companies that flooded West Virginia with opioids,” said Amelia Penniman, American Bridge spokeswoman, in a statement.

Republicans have hit back, saying that if anyone should be accused of inappropriate conduct regarding drug companies, it’s Manchin. The Democratic senator was embroiled in the Mylan EpiPen scandal in 2016 when it was revealed the firm raised the price of the product over 500 percent in seven years. Manchin’s daughter, Heather Bresch, is the CEO of Mylan. She testified at a contentious congressional hearing on this issue in 2017 and the company was also hit with a class-action racketeering lawsuit, which has since been settled.

Manchin asked members of Congress to be open-minded about the situation, which Republicans jumped on. “Joe Manchin claims to represent West Virginians, but it’s clear he’s really looking out for himself and big donors like Mylan,” said Bob Salera, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in a statement earlier this year. “When West Virginia voters give Manchin his early retirement this November, he can use some of that EpiPen money to upgrade his yacht.”

In West Virginia, however, ties to drug companies may not be the top issue on voters’ minds despite the national attention it has received.

“It’s going to be out there … but I don’t believe Pharma is a conversation this [election] will be about,” said Henson.

Bissett agreed, calling both candidates’ ties a “dotted line” to pharmaceuticals. “It’s not an issue either candidate will be bringing up probably, which softens it,” he said. The bigger issue – much bigger – is the length of the president’s coattails.