It has been big news that the race for Robert Byrd's old senate seat in West Virginia has been close. The Democrats nominated governor Manchin as their candidate and he was expected to coast to victory. The Republican candidate Raese, however, has been either close or ahead in the polls, a stunning development. Now comes another: Politico is reporting that there is an ongoing federal investigation of the manchin administration in connection with corruption concerning a multimillion dollar highway project in manchins's hometown. The Governor's office would only confirm that it had received subpoenas, but it refused to give out the details of even the subject of those subpoenas. Since this is Eric Holder's justice department and Manchin is a Democrat, there is no way that this investigation is politically motivated. No one knows for sure if the details of the investigation will leak out before the election, but none of this will be helpful to manchin's candidacy. I have to assume that the details would be worse for Manchin if they were known, since he otherwise would put out for the world any information that might clear him.
This is the kind of thing that could swing this election decisively to the Republicans.
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