Sen. Joe Manchin Will Wait Until ‘End Of The Year’ To Decide On Independent Presidential Bid

Sen Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) claimed that while he is considering a presidential run, he will not make a definitive decision for a while.

“My filing date is January 15 in 2024 and I will make my decision maybe a little bit before that, but not until the end of the year, I can assure you,” Manchin told NBC.

Manchin attempted to appear as non-partisan as possible, describing a willingness to work with either Democratic President Joe Biden or former Republican President Donald Trump. The West Virginia Democrat highlighted that his ultimate goal was to be a “productive senator,” no matter which party was in power.

Although Manchin is officially a Democrat, he refused to announce which party’s primary he would run in. He is actively being courted by the No Labels movement to be their 2024 candidate.

“The party identification is not going to change me,” he claimed after Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked him if he could confirm that he would run as a Democrat.

Manchin is the most conservative Democrat in the Senate. Manchin voted with Senate Republicans, while Trump was president, nearly 61 percent of the time.

Manchin was one of two Democratic senators who blocked large swaths of Biden’s domestic agenda. The other, Sen Krysten Sinema (I-Arizona), was a Democrat at the time when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for Biden’s first two years as president.

In the last Congress, Manchin and Sinema, being the 49th and 50th vote in the Senate for Democrats (with Vice President Kamala Harris there to break ties), wielded incredible power for two years as their votes were vital for enabling Democrats to pass their economic agenda.

They used their votes, which would have allowed Democrats to use a filibuster-proof rule known as budget reconciliation to change a broad range of economic policy, to instead block Biden’s main domestic bill: Build Back Better.

Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has blasted Manchin for “sabotaging” Biden’s agenda.

Manchin did vote for the American Rescue Plan, a COVID-19 relief bill that passed through budget reconciliation with no Republican support early on in Biden’s presidency. While more modest than Build Back Better, the American Rescue Plan did include several large progressive items such as the Child Tax Credit.

Manchin notes that he is a senator for West Virginia, a very conservative state that could not be won by a more liberal candidate.

Article by Jakob Mieszkowski-Lapping