blankenship responding to president trump s call for his defeat in today s republican u.s. senate primary. joining us now, national political correspondent for nbc news and msnbc steve kornacki. editor in chief of axios, nicholas johnston and political reporter for nbc news and msnbc, alex us. the story that s emerging in the last couple of days is in west virginia. it s the late momentum that blankenship has in this race. a three-way race, when you look at the public polling, it looked like he had faded back to third place, ten days ago. it looked like the effort from the republican establishment to suppress him was working. what s happened since then? he s dominated the coverage the last week of the race. he had a stylistically well received debate performance that got him some attention. the comments about cocaine mitch, the comments about his
he was a successful governor, elected senator and he s not afraid to shake it up, not afraid to roll up his sleeves, not afraid to punch pretty darn hard. is it really a foregone conclusion that if blankenship loses this seat goes red or does manchin have a pretty good shot? manchin is absolutely in the game no matter who gets nominated. joe manchin is as you re saying the type of democrat who for decades, for generations dominated west virginia politics. it s no state in the country has moved more sharply and more decisively from one party to the other than west virginia over the last generation from a democratic state voter from michael dukakis believe it or not in 1988 to one where every county lined up in 2016. he won it by 42 points in 2016. so manchin in the last decade, he s faced head winds before. in 2010 he had to run for a
words here, china people owning the label that came to him of bigotry that came with that. he s dominated the coverage. this race has been all about him. the weird situation is we do not have a public poll, an nbc poll, a media organization poll that shows him leading this race there are internal polls that are panicking republicans from rival campaigns. that suppose lid show him taking the lead in this race. in some cases, the reporting in some cases, we haven t seen those polls. there s a sense there s a momentum here. there s clearly a sense of panic among republicans. we haven t seen the polls. so there s a little suspense and mystery tonight. nick, you look at blankenship there. not exactly with reaganesque charisma. i love the message i love the line. i m trumpier than trump this is how these insurgencies unfold. trump is the great way to run is
against washington. i can t wait until president trump is primaried in the presidential election, says i m nor president trump than president trump is. they re tapping into also ta overt bigotry in the case of blankenship talking about china people and mitch mcconnell s china family. alex, let s talk about who s getting behind these candidates and who s not. we saw the president going out and saying wachovia don t vote for this blankenship guy because he can t win a general election against joe manchin. we ve seen members of the house run away from him but not in the senate. what s up with that dynamic? it can be confusing for people watching this election because you have two completely parallel universes playing out in the house and the senate. we ve heard so much over the past year and a half or so about the potential blue wave coming, democratic energy, and that s true in the house. the senate is a different story. part of that is that you have these gop primaries going on bu
year? i think in primaries that s absolutely the way to run. in both the republicans and the democratic side you have people in democratic parties running against nancy pelosi now. so there is an anti-washington anti-party leadership sentiment but then the question is how does that play out in the general election. the parties want to get the middle-of-the-road candidates who can win in november, not may or june or july. and that s where what the tension is and we ll learn a lot this afternoon around evening. we don t have public polling that brings us up to speed in the last few days but there are internal polls we learn about yesterday to show blankenship in west virginia tied for the lead, a statistical tie for the lead. what would it say about the modern republican party if you had the president of the united states who backed roy moore using roy moore as the example of what not to do in a primary. what would it say about the current republican party and what would people in wa