Mountain State GOP Takeover: Manchin Will Crumble in 2018

The good news for Republicans just got better.

And the Democratic Party is in such dire straits, that one has to wonder how they intend to make it through Election 2018.

Joe Manchin, embattled incumbent

Real Clear Politics has outlined the uphill battles they face. The DNCC and DRSC are investing heavily into blue states, and hope that they can flip seven seats in California to buttress their Congressional chances.

Those efforts will not prove successful. Other blue states will take on a redder hue going into 2018, too, like Minnesota and Connecticut.

But one Democrat in the US Senate is clearly in trouble, and will likely crumble in 2018 with the expanding GOP takeover in the Mountain State.

Check out Manchin's hypocrisy on cultural issues like abortion, all captured in one photo in one Tweet:

Washington @Sen_JoeManchin stands with @PPFA, but he refuses to admit that to WV. #WVSen https://t.co/kqrHiOICxs pic.twitter.com/XPd1Vp4CfT

— The Senate Majority (@NRSC) June 20, 2017

Even The Hill can't salvage Manchin's diminishing efforts.

Check out the crazy whopper they published in the first paragraph of the article:

Manchin is anti-abortion, once held an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association and has accused the Environmental Protection Agency of pushing overly burdensome regulations. 

How can anyone claim to be anti-abortion if they stand with Planned Parenthood? Laughable at best.

Notice also that Manchin "once held" the highest rating with the NRA.

What is it now, by the way?

While the ratings are currently not available, the NRA clearly has Manchin in their target scope.

Election 2018 US Senate Map

They slammed him savagely for attacking the due process concerns which prevented the FBI from stopping the Orlando shooter in 2016:

The problem we have, and really the firewall we have right now is due process. It’s all due process. So we can all say we want the same thing, but how do we get there? If a person is on a terrorist watch list like the gentleman, the shooter, in Orlando, he was twice by the FBI. We were briefed yesterday about what happened, but that man was brought in twice. They did everything they could. The FBI did everything they were supposed to do. But there was no way to keep him on the NICS list or keep him off the gun-buy list. There was no way to do that … due process is what’s killing us right now.

He also supported more background checks in 2013. Not as friendly toward the Second Amendment as he used to be.

There's more trouble for Manchin heading into 2018, too!

"Please Help Me"

From The Hill:

Manchin’s unique brand makes him “incredibly valuable to the Democratic Party,” according to FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten, who used statistics to show that a successful primary challenge would effectively guarantee Democrats lose the seat.

The brand is actually toxic all over the country, and Manchin is having a  harder time trying to stay in office, even though he wants to play conservative with the Mountain State Electorate, while playing the liberal two-step game in Washington.

This same kind of double-dealing doomed Tom Daschle, who had served as the Democratic Minority Leader until 2004, when he was finally forced out of office. Manchin is facing the same fate.

Actually, it's worse, since he will contend with a progressive, Berniecrat primary challenger named Paula Swearengin:

She confronted the senator during a March town hall in South Charleston, asking Manchin what the state’s “Plan B” is for its economy when coal is gone.

"When coal is gone" ... she obviously doesn't have the heart of the coal miners in mind, but she is seeking to rev up the Democratic base to turn out for her. After all, 55% of the Democratic primary electorate jumped behind Bernie Sanders, even though his cultural views clearly clash with the vast majority of the Mountain State electorate.

They are falling in line with the growing left-wing stance of the Democratic Party, which is dedicated at all costs to embracing every socialist, communistic line item available to them. Red State Democrats are finding fewer options and narrower means for holding onto the Democratic base in their states while remaining competitive for the bold red general election audience.

But Swearengin and other progressives don’t believe the conventional wisdom that only Manchin can win the seat for Democrats — they argue that Democrats have lost their way in the state because they are running too close to Republicans.

How did this formula work in Georgia? Not much, that's for sure. They tried to get a young nobody with some fashion and media appeal, and he didn't make it, despite $50 million spent in the special election.

Swearingen is plunging ahead on the progressive talking points:

“The Democratic Party has failed us, because we haven’t run the progressive platform we’ve been promised. … That’s why people have moved their votes to the Republicans,” she said.

This progressive platform has been rejected by the vast majority of the electorate all over the country. No one wants single-payer health care. No one wants gun control and registration. The younger generation has assisted the increasingly pro-life cultural shift sweeping the country.

Progressive Democratic politics will not play well in West Virginia. The only reason Bernie Sanders won the primary is that he did not announce an overt, all-out war on the coal industry. 

Manchin is betraying his pro-life constituents. He has backed away from clear stances against gun control, and he will not repeal Obamacare. His 2018 re-election bid is not looking very good as it is, and now it's gotten worse with a primary challenge.

As The Hill article mentioned above, anyone but Manchin as the Democratic nominee guarantees a Republican pick-up in 2018. I submit that with more attention paid to his left-wing votes against his right-wing persona in his home state, Manchin will find himself out of job next year.