President Donald Trump’s rousing Make America Great Again (MAGA) rally on Saturday may be the deciding factor in the increasingly close race between incumbent Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin and his Republican challenger, the state’s attorney general, Patrick Morrisey.
A survey the Morrisey campaign commissioned earlier this week found the race in a dead heat, with both candidates favored by 45 percent of respondents in a 500-voter sample. The survey has a 4.4 percent margin of error.
Other surveys in recent weeks have shown Manchin with a lead of as much as 8 points.
But no matter how close the race is, Trump delivered a speech punctuated over and over by cheers, laughter and boos, extolling his accomplishments of the first two years in the Oval Office and leveling harsh criticism and mocking of opponents, including Democrats, the “fake news” media, and “mean, angry obstructionists” in Washington.
Related: Donnelly Announces Opposition to Kavanaugh as Pressure Mounts on Manchin
“America is winning again. And America is respected again,” Trump told the cheering throng. “We’re putting America first finally.”
Trump returned repeatedly to the importance of the November 6 election: “Some people say everything we’ve done is at stake in the election. We are just five weeks away from the most important congressional election in our lifetimes.”
He acknowledged the conventional political wisdom that “You know, in theory, when you win the presidency, you aren’t supposed to have a great midterm, but nobody’s had a presidency like this. We have so many good things happening, so we should do well.”
Trump repeatedly shared his ire at Democrats and the “fake news” media, especially for their treatment of his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
“On Thursday, America saw the brilliant and really incredible character, quality and courage of our nominee for the United States Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh,” he said. “I will tell you he has suffered … the meanness, the anger.”
The president warned his audience about “this horrible, horrible group of Democrats running now. You see the meanness, the nastiness. They don’t care who they have to run over or hurt to get back power. But we’re not going to let them do it.”
Related: Four Ways the GOP Could Have Avoided Kavanaugh Headaches
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) came under especially withering notice for her role in the campaign against Kavanaugh. Referring to Republican suggestions on Friday that Feinstein leaked Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual molestation allegation against Kavanaugh to the media, Trump mocked Feinstein’s stumbling response.
“Dianne Feinstein, did you leak? Remember her answer. Did you leak the document? ‘Well, uh, uh, wait one minute, did we leak?’ Who knows, maybe she didn’t, but that was the worst body language I’ve ever seen,” Trump said.
Trump cited a West Virginia poll showing, he said, strong support for Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
“They just did a poll in West Virginia. Fifty-eight percent for Kavanaugh, 28 percent opposed. That’s pretty good. Women, 52 percent to 35 percent. Men, 65 percent to 21. That’s pretty good, isn’t it,” he said.
Then the president pointed directly at the bank of news media cameras covering the rally and said, “Honestly, the Democrats are a disgrace. And the number-one enabler of the Democrats is the fake news media. They stoke the fires of resentment and chaos. They report phony news … The fake news are truly the enemy of the people.”
West Virginia voters “have a chance to reject these disgraceful political hacks” when they vote on November 6, Trump said, including voting for Morrisey, whom the president described as “somebody who will give us what we want every single time. There won’t be any question about it — Patrick Morrisey.”
After Morrisey spoke, Trump returned to his theme of the importance of defeating Manchin and the dire consequences of a Democratic tide in November that would return that party to majority status in the House of Representatives and/or the Senate.
“Who knows, maybe she didn’t, but that was the worst body language I’ve ever seen.”
“This is a guarantee. Your coal mines and your miners are working. They will kill West Virginia coal, that’s a guarantee. And they want to turn our federal courts into the political arm of the Democratic resistance,” Trump said.
“Now Joe Manchin voted ‘no’ on tax cuts for American families — he just voted ‘no.’ He voted ‘no’ removing Obama’s job-killing regulations … Joe also voted ‘no’ on repealing and replacing Obamacare, which we almost had done, but, and I’ll be nice now, we couldn’t get a single Democrat vote,” he continued.
“And Joe voted ‘yes’ on something not too many people in this room like, mass amnesty. Joe refused to stand up to the Democrat resistance, the radical open border Dems, Pelosi and their new de facto leader, the legendary Maxine Waters,” Trump said.
“The Democrats will stop at nothing to run your lives,” he said, “to run down your values, and ransack our nation’s wealth. They will turn it around, make it bad so fast.”
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