Wildcard Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) still will not say if he voted for President Obama during last month’s West Virginia Democratic primary.
Politico says this is a bad sign for the president:
That’s how bad it is for Obama in West Virginia: A popular Democratic senator refuses to admit whether he voted for his party’s sitting president.
"This is something I’ve never seen in my life," said Manchin, who’s been asked repeatedly whether he left his ballot blank instead.
Manchin’s reticence reflects the bigger challenges for Obama in West Virginia and beyond as the president tries to win over disenchanted, largely white working-class voters in swing states from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. Even as Democrats control all levers of power in West Virginia and dominate the state’s voter registration rolls by a nearly 2-1 margin over the GOP, Obama remains just as unpopular here as he was when he lost the 2008 primary and general election by resounding margins. The state is expected to be an easy Mitt Romney win in November.
The president was challenged by Keith Judd, an inmate in a Texas prison, in the state’s primary.