Breaking: Surprising winner announced in highly contested West Virginia GOP primary

The contentious contest between three top candidates for West Virginia's U.S. Senate seat has been called for Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.

Morrisey beat out Rep. Evan Jenkins, who it appears will come in second, and controversial candidate Don Blankenship for the GOP nomination.

Blankenship was denounced by President Donald Trump for being too controversial to defeat Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin. The former coal mogul was convicted for lax coal mine safety standards after 29 miners died in an accident.

He also made headlines when he referred to the father of the wife of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as a "China person," and then doubled down in ad where he repeated the phrase and referred to McConnell as "cocaine Mitch."

Morrisey will face Manchin, who is widely considered to be a weaker incumbent in the U.S. Senate.

As the election was being called for Morrisey, a tweet from McConnell's official campaign account appeared to ridicule Blankenship.

"Thanks for playing," the tweet read.

Here's Fox News' video report about the results:

JUST IN: The Fox News Decision Desk can now project a winner in the West Virginia Republican Senate Primary: State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey #AEHQ https://t.co/WxejROC9iC pic.twitter.com/EmJj3zH6ze

— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 9, 2018

Earlier in the evening, Fox News election analyst Chris Stirewalt said the election was remarkable but unpredictable.

"I can tell you that anybody who tells that they know how this West Virginia race is gonna turn out doesn't know what they're talking about because we have never seen a contest like this in West Virginia ever ever," he said. "There's gonna be bigger turnout. There's more interest."

"They've never had a Fox News debate there," he continued. "They've never had a Republican primary with $10 million in it."

Here's more about the West Virginia GOP primary race: