Dem
51
GOP
49
As long as we are on the subject of Chuck Schumer, he is working overtime to try to preserve his razor-thin majority in the Senate. And to that end, he's trying to recruit a candidate to run in West Virginia who just might be able to win there. The readers of this site have undoubtedly heard of Schumer's pick, as it is... Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).
It is too late for Manchin to run in the state's Democratic primary, which is scheduled for May 14. So, the Democratic nominee will either be perennial candidate and even more perennial sleazeball Don Blankenship, Wheeling mayor Glenn Elliott or Marine Corps veteran Zach Shrewsbury. The first of those has more baggage than Samsonite and the other two are unknowns, while Shrewsbury is also way too liberal for West Virginia. So, it's not like the West Virginia Democratic Party is going to put up a world-beater.
If Manchin was to run, he would have to enter the race as an independent, and the deadline for doing that is August 1. We do not have our finger on the pulse of West Virginia politics to know if running as an independent would somehow make Manchin more electable than running as a Democrat. What we do know is that a 3-month campaign undoubtedly sounds a lot better to a man in his 70s than does a 9-month campaign. Manchin's response to Schumer's proposal was: "I don't anticipate running, [but] I don't know if anything in Washington, DC, is 100%." That is somewhat less than the Full Sherman, and roughly 4 months is a lot of time for Manchin to decide, and to put out feelers to see if he would be viable.
Of course, West Virginia is not the only state where the Democrats are doing whatever they can to try to hold the majority. In Ohio, there's some good old-fashioned ratfu**ing going on. As we noted yesterday, the Ohio GOP primary is down to three people: Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who isn't going to win, Trumpy car dealer Bernie Moreno, who's pretty nutty, and not-so-Trumpy baseball owner Matt Dolan, who is the most electable of the three.
According to polls, Moreno and Dolan are neck-and-neck for the nomination. Democrats would much prefer that Moreno come out ahead when Ohioans vote on Tuesday. So, to that end, the Democrats' Senate Majority PAC is spending nearly $3 million on pro-Moreno advertising. Because Democrats don't want Ohio Republicans to get wind of what is going on, however, the Senate Majority PAC has created, in effect, a shell PAC called Duty and Country. We would have gone with Duty and Country and Jesus, just to really sell it, but what do we know.
In short, Schumer is very much willing to roll up his sleeves and play hardball. Keep that in mind the next time you see one of those pieces, probably in The New York Times, about how the Democrats don't understand that their Senate majority is in danger, and/or they don't seem to care. (Z)