Attempts at election shenanigans (to lower GOP votes in the race), or are some WV Democrats just flippin’ nuts?
It’s just trolling; nothing more. There’s nothing illegal about signing a petition to put someone on a ballot as a candidate. In this case, it appears to only be a couple of thousand West Virginia Democrats, and I would assume they thought the idea of having Blankenship on the ballot would be a lot of fun.
Is this bad for the Republican or does this have some negative side effect for the Dem?
Shee-it. Donald fucking Trump made it on the ballot. That chairwoman needs to clarify that she means the Democratic Party doesn’t want him, not that he can’t be on period.
It’s definitely bad for the GOP if Blankenship gets his name on the ballot. The headline on the main page is a little misleading–there’s really nothing here to support the idea that lots of WV Democrats actually want Blankenship on the ballot for anything other than spoiler purposes.
It is probably good for the D’s if he is on the ballot. His base of support is with core trump voters (The R is a pharmaceutical lobbyist/lawyer from NJ https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/03/patrick-morrisey-west-virginia-senate-race-511801 ) and they are more likely to vote for the R than the D without a true nut to vote for.
Some are clearly spoiler signatures, but my guess is that many are from D’s in name only.
Voter registration in WV is still Dem leaning, 42% to 32% for Republicans, even as many of those registered as Democrats vote Republican. In addition, I suspect many actual Democrats would like to see Blankenship on the ballot as a spoiler for any Republican chances of flipping the seat.
LOL…gonna be funny when it splits the MAGAbilly vote.
Same reason I’m registered repub. Voted for Chistine O’Donnel. Some disappointment w/ Coons, but he’s a whole lot better than Castle would have been.
I think they’re signing it because they think that it’s proper that people who want to be on the ballot are on the ballot
Whereas I think they’re signing it because they think it will split the vote on the right. But hey.
Good. I want Dems to try every dirty trick in the book. If people don’t like this, they should fix the problem with ranked choice voting.
Normally, my question would be “where can I sign?”, on the theory that having a second crazy right winger on the ballot is good for the Dems. But these days … I dunno. I’m not convinced that all the bad shit has come down yet.
Blankenship on the ballot helps the Dems. This explains the signatures. I wish I could sign too, to help the Democratic cause, but I live in Florida and I assume they wouldn’t let me in WV.
“Anyone who understands what our party is all about understands that we would never ask anyone to support Don Blankenship to have his name appear on the ballot in the general election,” she said.
No siree, don’t throw me in dat briar patch!
West Virginia electoral map 2016
The Democratic areas of the state are in blue.
Yes.
Another northern state that seem more racist than most southern states.
Yeah, Dems supported Blankenship in the hopes he’ll split the conserva-nut vote.
I think this is a mistake.
- The Sore-Loser Law is pretty cut-and-dried here. That is the only good reason to keep him off the ballet.
- Anything that puts this asshat closer to having real power is a bad move, period.
We aren’t doing ourselves any favors when we push for exceptions to reasonable laws just because the exception might be expedient in the short term.
If WV is like NC, there may be a lot of voters registered as Democrats that consistently vote for the Repugs. It would be interesting to find out if some Dems are trying to split the Repug vote. I always voted in the Repug primaries in TX in an attempt to get the least reprehensible one on the ballot because that was your only chance, the Dems have not won a statewide office in a long time. It never worked out that way.