'The fringe guys are no longer fringe': Watch John Oliver take on racist ex-con who is now leading Republican senate candidate

Republican Don Blankenship appears poised to win his party's nomination for US Senator in West Virginia.

Not only did Blankenship serve prison time for violating safety rules before a mine blast that killed 29 people, he doesn't even live in the state.

But he's having success running a Trumpian campaign in which he attacks "China persons," and party-leader "Cocaine Mitch" McConnell.

"I know it's tempting to write Blankenship off as a wacky outlier, but when a party moves as far to the right as the Republican Party have the fringe guys are no longer Fringe," Oliver said. "They pop up all the time and sometimes they win."

Watch the sketch below.