There was a time when there was a robust debate about which Senate Democrat was worse, Kyrsten Sinema or Joe Manchin. That time is gone because Sinema left the Democratic Party and is now an independent. In terms of just voting record, though, Manchin has always been the worst. And now… he’s even worse than he’s ever been. West Virginia has a PVI of R+22. Only Wyoming (R+25) is worse. None of the old slave-holding states come anywhere near as bad as West Virginia, not Arkansas (R+16), not Alabama (R+15), not Tennessee (R+14)… West Virginia gave Trump 68.6% of its vote; again, only Wyoming was worse (69.9%)— and in 2016 West Virginia was fractionally even worse than Wyoming in that regard. In 2020, Trump won every single county in the state, 27 of them with over 75% of the vote; 9 of them with over 80%. And in November, 2024, Manchin, first elected in 2010, will have to run for reelection— presumably as a Democrat— in that hellhole… and likely against a popular Republican governor.
So far not a single one of his Democratic colleagues has endorsed him— but two Senate Republicans, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowsky, have, as have AIPAC and a boatload of Republican fatcats like Ken Langone, Bernard Marcus, Norman Peltz and Leon Cooperman. The first time Manchin ran for the Senate, in a 2010 special election after Robert Byrd died, he beat Republican John Raese by just over 10 points. In 2012 when he ran for the full term, he beat Raese again— this time in a landslide— 399,898 (60.6%) to 240,787 (36.5%). But the next time Manchin faced the voters (2018), he had a much tougher time. Almost 50,000 Democrats voted against him ing the primary and many them did not switch to him in the general, where he barely edged out Patrick Morrisey by fewer than 20,000 votes— 49.6% to 46.3%.
In the best of times, Manchin votes with Republicans more than any other Senate Democrat. Now he’s doing everything he can to prepare for the 2024 election by being as anti-Democratic as he can be without switching parties.
Over the weekend, Liz Goodwin reported that Manchin has been stepping up his attacks on the Biden administration. She wrote that his increased recent criticism of the Biden administration is “sparking speculation— that he brushes off— that he is gearing up for a campaign in a state where his survival depends upon keeping a healthy distance from Democrats. He warned in an op-ed this week that ‘generations of Americans will ultimately pay the price’ if President Biden does not negotiate spending cuts with Republicans, called the administration’s policy allowing financial advisers to consider climate and other social goals ‘infuriating’ and ‘radical’ in a statement last week, and told the president not to nominate activists after torpedoing several of his nominees.”
The steady stream of criticism has the senator reprising the role he played shortly after Biden’s election, when he blocked core pieces of Biden’s agenda while drawing the wrath of the left. Manchin reversed that dynamic when he helped deliver Biden a signature legislative achievement last year, surprising both Democrats and Republicans by signing onto a climate, energy and prescription drug pricing bill that the moderate named the Inflation Reduction Act.
National Republicans, who have made Manchin their top Senate target in 2024, argue that his vote for that bill permanently damaged him at home, where they believe his earlier stymieing of Democrats had boosted his popularity among the state’s working-class voters, who have made a steady exodus from the party. Recently, Manchin, the chair of the Energy Committee, has criticized the Biden administration for trying to “subvert” the legislation that he helped write to “advance a partisan agenda that ignores both energy and fiscal security.” He even threatened to sue the Treasury Department if he disagrees with its rules on electric vehicle tax credits, which he believes should only apply to vehicles with U.S.-made batteries, and on Friday, he called the administration’s electric vehicle rules “pathetic” and “horrific.”
Yesterday a trio of NY Times reporters wrote that Manchin, who voted to convict Trump in his two impeachment cases, raised concerns that Trump has been improperly targeted by Alvin Bragg, even before he has learned the details of the indictment. “It’s just a very, very sad day for America, especially when people are maybe believing that the rule of law or justice is not working the way it’s supposed to and it’s biased— we can’t have that,” he said, referring to Trump’s indictment in an interview on Fox News Sunday.
