A day after announcing he will not run for re-election for U.S. Senate, Joe Manchin was in the spotlight at a symposium on political civility.
His appearance at the civility symposium is in step with Manchin’s stated goal of traveling America in search of political middle ground.
During his opening remarks, Manchin called back to an earlier political decision he had to make: whether to run for Senate in 2010 after the death of Robert C. Byrd, a Democrat who had held the seat since 1959. Manchin, who was in his second term as governor at the time, calculated that the state was on solid ground. So he ran and won.
“When I got here, I found out there was more people working against each other than there were working with each other,” Manchin said at the Johnny Isakson Symposium on Political Civility.
That sums up the polarization and frustration that has led Manchin, a Democrat, to opt out of running for another term in the Senate and, instead, contemplating other options. By the time Manchin was considering re-election a cycle ago, in 2018, he was going on the record to say of the Senate, “this place sucks.”
This week, Manchin rocked West Virginia and national politics by saying he’s done with the place that sucks.
“After months of deliberation and long conversations with my family, I believe in my heart of hearts that I have accomplished what I set out to do for West Virginia,” Manchin said in a statement released by his office.
“I have made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for re-election to the United States Senate, but what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.”
In the Senate, where 51 members caucus with Democrats and 49 with Republicans, Manchin’s independent-minded votes have often been both key and a source of frustration to his colleagues.
Manchin’s re-election bid would have been an uphill battle in increasingly Republican-dominated West Virginia. Early polls have consistently shown incumbent Gov. Jim Justice winning in a shellacking or a competitive potential matchup between Manchin and Congressman Alex Mooney, another Republican in the race.
Manchin’s statement hints at the dalliance with No Labels, an independent political organization trying to gain ballot access across the country to put up a ticket as an alternative to the possibility of a Biden-Trump rematch.
Asked last week by MetroNews whether Manchin is their guy, officials with No Labels said they’re focused on ballot access first and their actual flag bearers later.
“Well, the short answer is, we don’t know who the best candidate is,” said Ryan Clancy, chief strategist for No Labels in response to the specific Manchin question. “I mean, I’m not saying that to be coy. You know, for all this polling that we’ve done, we haven’t polled any named candidates.
“And there’s a reason for that, which is this far out it doesn’t really tell you much because it doesn’t really tell you much because nobody has name ID like the two incumbents. Right now, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Taylor Swift — those are the people in America with 100% name ID, and everybody else is way below that. So even a well-known governor, senator — half the public doesn’t know who they are.”
Jonathan Kott, a lobbyist who is a longtime Manchin confidante, said on MetroNews’ “Talkline” that he is not surprised by Manchin’s decision to not seek re-election. “He’s been frustrated with how broken and partisan D.C. has been for years,” Kott said, “and I think he finally just got fed up.”
Kott said his own opinion has been that a third-party candidate cannot get enough votes to win a presidential race, but he said that times are changing and that if anyone can make a serious run it’s Manchin.
“He’s gonna go out and see what can be done and how you can mobilize these people to have a bigger voice and be more active,” Kott said. “I think right now he’s just focused on figuring out how he gives these people the voice that he knows exists. He knows that outside of D.C., people want compromise.”
By 2025, Manchin will be giving up a seat that has been held by Democrats for 66 years. The last Republican to represent West Virginia in that particular Senate seat was Chapman Revercomb, who served from 1956 to 1959, before being defeated by Byrd.
Now, both Manchin and the once-dominant Democratic Party are at a crossroads in West Virginia.
“Sen. Manchin has been in politics long enough to know that there is no clear path to victory for a third party run in a presidential election in the United States. The electoral votes just aren’t there. There never has been. Even Teddy Roosevelt tried it, and he wasn’t able to run as a third party candidate and he’s on Mount Rushmore,” said Mike Pushkin, state Democratic Party chairman.
Without Manchin on Senate ballots, Democrats will now be looking for a miraculous “wins above replacement” candidate.
“Nobody is denying the fact that it’s going to be a huge uphill battle, but nothing worthwhile in life isn’t worth fighting for and we’re going to continue to fight,” Pushkin said on “Talkline.”
“We’ve already had a candidate who filed a while back, and now that we got the announcement yesterday that Sen. Manchin is not running, there’s going to be more people who have interest in serving this great state and serving their great country in the U.S. Senate. A year is a long time in politics.”
