Joe Manchin

Martinsburg, W.V.

In the West Virginia Senate race, Rasmussen showed Republican John Raese with a 7-point lead a week ago, but now puts Governor Joe Manchin on top 49% to 46%. It looks like Manchin has done an effective job of running away from his past support of Obamacare and hitting Raese for his comments that he'd like to get rid of the minimum wage.

Via the Huffington Post, here's West Virginia governor and Democratic Senate candidate Joe Manchin explaining on Fox News Sunday why he would have voted against the health care bill:

Josh Rogin, writing at the Cable, has an interesting piece about the consequences the November elections might have on the START agreement’s fate in the Senate.

West Virginia's Democratic governor and Senate candidate Joe Manchin attended a $1,000 to $5,000 a head fundraiser in Washington, D.C. today and apparently* slipped out the back door without taking questions from the press.

The Charleston Daily Mail is endorsing Republican John Raese over Democrat Joe Manchin. It's a "painful choice," says the editorial.

Governor Joe Manchin, who trails Republican John Raese by 3 points in Rasmussen's latest poll on the West Virginia Senate race (the Real Clear Politics average has Manchin slightly ahead on the basis of two Democratic polls), is now running a pro-Obamacare ad:

Politico reports:

Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin has opened up a double-digit lead over Republican John Raese in the West Virginia Senate special election, according to a new poll set for release Friday morning.

West Virginia's Democratic governor and Senate candidate Joe Manchin has tried to play up the class warfare angle against his Republican opponent John Raese. In one TV ad, the Manchin campaign cropped a picture of of Raese and his wife in front of their Florida mansion and darkened his wife's skin to give her an orange glow.

Well, it turns out Manchin has some expensive tastes of his own. Ben Smith notes that Manchin is "part-owner of a rather nice 54-foot yacht, called the Black Tie.... Manchin flew down to Mobile Alabama on a state plane to pick it up in 2005, and hastily reimbursed the state $5,400 for the flight after the local press called to ask about it."

Apparently Manchin likes to enjoy the good life on land as well as at sea. From the West Virginia Gazette:

West Virginia governor Joe Manchin, the Democratic Senate candidate who's locked in a tight race with Republican John Raese, is now running an ad in which he promises to "take dead aim" at cap-and-trade and then literally shoots a hole through the law (which is labeled, conveniently enough, "CAP AND TRADE BILL").

I noted earlier that Public Policy Polling shows West Virginia's Democratic governor Joe Manchin with a 3-point lead over John Raese, but the poll appears to be a little bit skewed to the left. Our very own Jay Cost (who keeps a record of all exit polling data dating back to 1796 indexed in his brain), points out that PPP's poll is predicting the most pro-Democratic electorate in West Virginia in over a decade.

Morgantown, W. Va.

With Bill Clinton at his side and the Monongahela River in the background, West Virginia governor and Democratic Senate candidate Joe Manchin spent much of yesterday's rally distancing himself from President Obama and the national Democratic party.