United States Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat representing West Virginia, is allegedly considering leaving the Democratic Party, according to multiple news sources. Speaking with a local West Virginia news outlet, Manchin said he’s seriously considering leaving the party and that the question of becoming an independent has been on his mind for “some time.”
“I’ve been thinking about that for quite some time,” he is quoted as having said in an interview on “Talkline,” a show produced by MetroNews, “The brand has become so bad, the D brand and R brand. In West Virginia, the D brand because it’s nationally bad. It’s not the Democrats in West Virginia. It’s the Democrats in Washington, or the Washington policies of the Democrats. You’ve heard me say a million times that I’m not a Washington Democrat.”
Joe Manchin also said he doesn’t think a third party presidential effort would benefit Donald Trump. Manchin is frequently regarded as a potential presidential aspirant for No Labels, a centrist organization seeking ballot access. It is currently mulling over whether it will place a presidential candidate on the 2024 election ballot and has recently scored local legal victories in areas like Arizona.
Manchin has a long history of butting heads with his fellow Democratic colleagues in Washington, especially regarding government spending and social issues. In particular, he has clashed with the party on topics like the expansion of the SALT-Cap and the Equality Act. As a result, Manchin has fielded criticism from members of his party and, at times, has attracted invitations and the attention of his Republican colleagues.
This is additionally not the first instance where Manchin has flirted with leaving the Democratic Party. As far back as 2021, Manchin has allegedly floated the idea of becoming an independent member of the United States Senate, similar to now-independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. At the time, he allegedly told associates that he was considering leaving the Democratic Party if President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats did not agree to cut the size of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act from $3.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion. Had he left, associates claimed he would have enrolled as an “American independent.”
If Joe Manchin does decide to leave the Democratic Party and become a registered independent, he would be the Senate’s fourth sitting independent member.
Said it before, will say it again: I think Jon Huntsman would be a much stronger candidate for NoLabels for top of their ticket than Manchin would be. Manchin lacks charisma, and has negative baggage (e.g. his general sellout to corporate donors) with many independents. I think Huntsman (or even Larry Hogan) could gather more Never Trumpers along with some “silent majority” swing voters than Manchin.
I’d vote for him if he ran as an Independent. I just wish he would get in the race already.
I’m getting a bit weary of Senator Manchin playing it so coy. His recent oped in the Wall Street Journal (or maybe it was USA Today) sounded like it could have been penned by Rand Paul. He is all of a sudden a fiscal conservative? Yeah, right! The media has changed from calling him a maverick Democrat to a moderate Democrat and today I saw him referred to as a conservative Democrat. Blather all the way. His voting record tells us who and what he is. His only real appeal is that he is not Joe Biden nor Donald Trump.