State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey won the West Virginia GOP Senate primary on Tuesday, avoiding a nightmare scenario for Republicans, who feared that former coal magnate Don Blankenship would capture the party's nomination in a race that could determine which party controls the Senate next year.

The Associated Press called the race with Morrisey leading Rep. Evan Jenkins, and Blankenship in third place with only about 20 percent of the vote. Blankenship, the former Massey Energy CEO who was convicted in 2015 of conspiring to skirt mine standards and was only released from custody a year ago, conceded the race about a half-hour before it was called for Morrisey.


When Blankenship seemed to be surging in the final days of the race, President Donald Trump and the Republican Party implored voters not to back him, saying it would guarantee a loss to Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in the general election.

In comments to supporters at his election-night party in Charleston, West Virginia, Blankenship expressed no regrets about his campaign, including television ads that referred to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) as "Cocaine Mitch" and said he has a “China family.” (The parents of McConnell’s wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, were born in China.)

"I feel good about what I've done," Blankenship said.

Blankenship suggested that a tweet by Trump on Monday urging voters to back Morissey or Jenkins might have cost him votes. Trump's tweet reflected the widespread belief among Republicans in Washington that the party would squander one of its best pickup opportunities — Trump carried the state by 42 percentage points in 2016 — if Blankenship won the nomination.

Morrisey will now face off against Manchin in what is shaping up as one of the most competitive Senate races of the 2018 midterms. Though Manchin easily won his last election in 2012, Trump carried West Virginia by 42 percentage points in 2016.

Primaries were also held Tuesday in Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio.

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In Indiana, Republicans picked businessman Mike Braun to face Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly this fall. Braun, who was elected to one term in the state legislature in 2014 but resigned to run for Senate, donated or loaned $6.3 million to his campaign.

Reps. Luke Messer and Todd Rokita, his opponents, framed Braun — who had regularly voted in Democratic primaries in Indiana until running for the state House — as an opportunist and insincere conservative. But Braun successfully tagged Messer and Rokita as D.C. insiders who even look alike — airing a TV ad in which Hoosiers on the street couldn't tell them apart.

In Ohio, Republican Rep. Jim Renacci, who was backed by Trump, prevailed over businessman Mike Gibbons and will face off against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in the general election.

Of the four states holding primaries, only Ohio has a gubernatorial race on the ballot. GOP state Attorney General Mike DeWine, the former senator, will face former state Attorney General Richard Cordray in the general election. DeWine easily defeated Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor in the Republican primary; Cordray, who until recently headed the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, cruised past former Rep. Dennis Kucinich on the Democratic side.

In congressional races, state Sen. Troy Balderson narrowly captured the nomination to replace former GOP Rep. Pat Tiberi in Ohio’s 12th District, which was vacated earlier this year by former Rep. Pat Tiberi. Tiberi supported Balderson, including buying time for TV ads out of his own campaign account. But hard-line conservatives, including Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), were mostly lined up behind second-place finisher Melanie Leneghan, a local town official in the district.

(Because Tiberi resigned, there are primaries both for the general election in November, and also for a special election set for August for the rest of Tiberi’s term.)

In the competitive GOP primary to replace Renacci, who is vacating his northern Ohio district to run for Senate, former Ohio State wide receiver Anthony Gonzalez won the Republican nomination after receiving backing from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In North Carolina, Rep. Robert Pittenger, whose district has been marked by Democrats as a possible pickup opportunity in the general election, became the first House incumbent to lose renomination, falling to pastor Mark Harris . Harris, who fell 134 votes short in his bid to unseat Pittenger in 2016, will face Democrat Dan McCready in the fall.

Meanwhile, Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) survived another primary fight, winning a plurality of the vote in his eastern North Carolina district as two rivals split the opposition vote.

In West Virginia, seven Republicans sought the GOP nomination to replace Jenkins in the House, with state Del. Carol Miller prevailing. Miller will face Democratic state Sen. Richard Ojeda in a district that voted overwhelmingly for Trump but had sent former Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) to Congress for decades until Jenkins won in 2014.

In Messer's district, the winner Tuesday night is a name familiar to Indiana voters: Greg Pence, the vice president's brother. Mike Pence represented the seat until 2012, when he left the House to run for governor. Meanwhile, in the Rokita district, state Rep. Jim Baird defeated Steve Braun, brother of Mike, the Senate nominee.

Alex Isenstadt reported from Charleston, West Virginia.