WHEELING, W.Va. — A new poll out Monday evening shows recently imprisoned coal baron and Senate hopeful Don Blankenship fading in the Republican primary, amid an avalanche of establishment attacks aimed at stopping him from winning the nomination.

With the primary two weeks away, the survey shows Blankenship, who spent a year in jail following the deadly 2010 explosion at his Upper Big Branch Mine, falling far behind his more mainstream rivals, GOP Rep. Evan Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. The poll found Morrisey leading with 24 percent, followed by Jenkins with 20 percent, and Blankenship trailing with 12 percent. Thirty-nine percent were undecided.


The survey, which was conducted April 17-19 and has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points, came as Blankenship squared off against his rivals in a 90-minute debate held at Wheeling Jesuit University. The candidates spent much of the evening aligning themselves with President Donald Trump, and beating up on Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

They will also meet on Tuesday, and again next week for a nationally televised debate hosted by Fox News.

The survey of 411 primary voters was commissioned by GOPAC, an organization that promotes state Republican legislators, and was conducted by National Research Inc., a polling firm that worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign. Neither has taken sides in the primary.

National Republicans have scrambled to intervene in the contest, fearing that a Blankenship primary win would destroy their prospects of unseating Manchin. The 68-year-old former coal executive has spent nearly $2 million of his own to fund a slash-and-burn style campaign savaging Jenkins and Morrisey as establishment pawns.

He has also sought to clear his name. Much of Blankenship’s campaign has been geared toward portraying himself as the casualty of an Obama Justice Department bent on locking him up.

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Fearful that Blankenship was gaining traction, Mountain Families PAC, a super PAC overseen by strategists close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s political operation, swung back — airing around $700,000 worth of TV ads in recent days accusing Blankenship of contaminating drinking water.

The effort to defeat Blankenship has gone further. Earlier this month, Trump flew to West Virginia to hold an event aimed at selling his tax reform legislation. The president was seated next to Jenkins and Morrisey, a clear attempt to promote their candidacies over Blankenship, who was not in attendance.

For national Republicans, the move was not without risk. Last year, a McConnell-aligned super PAC spent millions to stop Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore from winning the nomination, only to see it backfire. Moore used it to cast himself as the victim of the establishment, and went on to win the primary before losing the general election in a stunning upset.

Blankenship is taking a similar approach. With the contest hurtling into the final stretch, he has begun airing commercials calling McConnell a “swamp creature.”

And during a news conference on Monday morning, Blankenship pledged not to support McConnell as Senate GOP leader if he’s elected.

"He needs to understand that if I'm there I will not vote for him for majority leader, and so the rest of the senators should understand that they should not put him up if they need my vote,” he told reporters.

The candidates largely avoided attacking each other at Monday’s debate, perhaps because three lesser-known contenders were also included onstage, a setup that limited the amount of speaking time.

Blankenship used the debate to further his argument against the establishment. He called the 2010 mine explosion “heart-wrenching,” and called it “one of the worst days of my life.”

But he blamed the disaster on the government, saying it had taken steps to limit the amount of airflow available to the miners.

During his closing remarks, Blankenship referred to Washington as the “district of corruption,” and argued that politicians there often tried to make themselves look like they were fighting over ideals when they were merely posturing.

“When I go to D.C.,” he said, “it won’t be a fake fight, it will be a real fight.”

With candidates and outside groups crowding the TV airwaves, much of the firepower is being directed at Jenkins, a second-term congressman who in 2014 defeated longtime Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall. All told, around $1.2 million is expected to be spent against Jenkins, according to a media buyer.

Among those spending heavily against Jenkins is Duty and Country, an outside Democratic group with offices in Washington. To date the group has spent around $380,000 on TV, the vast majority of it against Jenkins.

At Monday’s debate, Jenkins argued that Democrats were trying to “meddle” in the primary. He said their attacks on him was proof that the opposing party viewed him as the biggest threat to Manchin.

The Democratic effort, he added, was unprecedented in West Virginia politics.

“They’re scared to death of Evan Jenkins on the ballot in November because they know Evan Jenkins can beat Joe Manchin,” the congressman said.

