An Ominous Night for House Republicans

An incumbent Republican congressman lost his primary on Tuesday night, and three sitting GOP members of the House were defeated in their bids for promotions to the Senate.

Yet in an era when conservative primary voters are rewarding insurgency over incumbency, that somehow still counts as a good night for the GOP establishment. Party leaders in Washington escaped their nightmare scenario in West Virginia, where rank-and-file Republicans heeded President Trump’s last-minute plea to reject the Senate candidacy of Don Blankenship, the recently imprisoned ex-coal baron who ran an overtly racist campaign against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his family.

Blankenship finished a distant third as “Cocaine Mitch” and in an interview labeled the father of his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, a “Chinaperson.”