West Virginia's Conservative Democrat Gets a Primary Challenger

Joe Manchin, the Senate’s most conservative and Donald Trump-friendly Democrat, is facing a primary challenger. Paula Swearengin, a coal miner’s daughter and environmental activist, plans to run for the senator’s West Virginia seat in the 2018 Democratic primary election.

Manchin is now facing opponents from the left and the right. West Virginia Republican Representative Evan Jenkins announced on Monday that he will run against the senator in 2018. Manchin has supported most of president’s cabinet picks, and voted in line with the president’s agenda more often than not—and more than any other Senate Democrat. That could help him win re-election in a state that Trump won by double digits in November, but it has also made Manchin a top target of the activist left at a time when progressives are calling for all-out opposition to the president.

Swearengin has the backing of Brand New by former Bernie Sanders campaign staffers and volunteers to support primary opponents against Democrats and Republicans in 2018. She also has the support of Justice Democrats, whose mission statement is to run “congressional campaigns that lead to a progressive and un-bought congress in 2018” and WeWillReplaceYou.org, a group that says it is “dedicated to challenging establishment Democrats unwilling to resist Trump’s agenda.”