Former coal executive Don Blankenship, who spent a year in prison for conspiring to violate mine safety laws, is seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in West Virginia. Blankenship, who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate as a Republican in 2018 and for the White House as a third-party candidate in 2020, faces a significant challenge in the May 14 Democratic primary.
Blankenship is well-known in the coal-producing state as the former chief executive of Massey Energy, whose Upper Big Branch mine explosion in 2010 killed 29 men. He was convicted in 2015 of conspiring to violate mine safety laws and sentenced to a year in federal prison.
Democrats, who hold a slim majority in the Senate, are concerned that Blankenship’s victory in the primary could damage their chances in West Virginia, where President Donald Trump won by nearly 39 percentage points in 2020. Sen. Joe Manchin, who is retiring, has endorsed Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott, a pro-union candidate.
Blankenship has argued that the Democratic Party has abandoned its traditional values and that he is the true representative of West Virginians. He faces competition in the primary from Elliott and Marine veteran Zach Shrewsbury.
In an interview, Blankenship said, “Basically I hope to deliver the message that when West Virginians vote for a typical Democrat, they’re voting for the policies that they don’t believe in.
That’s actually the reason they abandoned the party to begin with.”
Elliott and Shrewsbury have stressed the importance of investing in green energy technology and criticized laws that weaken union power.
“We need to fight for the worker, not the company store,” Shrewsbury said.
Blankenship has spent thousands on lawsuits alleging defamation and character assassination, all of which have been rejected by courts. He has also been a major donor to Republican candidates, including nearly $3.5 million in 2004 to help elect the first Republican to the state Supreme Court in more than 80 years.
West Virginia voters have yet to embrace Blankenship as a serious candidate.
“The Republicans rejected him, so I’m pretty sure the Democrat Party will handily reject him as well,” said Shrewsbury, whose grandfather was a coal miner.
Mindi Stewart, whose husband survived the Upper Big Branch explosion, said she and her husband are concerned about Blankenship’s candidacy.
“We know he’s going to run every chance he gets and we know why he is running,” she said. “We know, and I think he knows, he’ll never get elected. Being found guilty has eaten him alive from the moment it happened.”
