Senator Joe Manchin at NETL. July 7, 201. Photo Simon Edelman, Energy Department.
Sen. Joe Manchin has announced his intention to retire from the Senate. But, explains Matthew Rice at The New York Sun, Manchin simultaneously hinted at a run for President. Will the senator from West Virginia throw his hat in the ring? Rice writes:
Senator Manchin has announced that he will not seek re-election to the Senate next year, giving Republicans their best pick-up opportunity in 2024. The West Virginian, though, seemed to leave the door open to a possible presidential campaign.
“I believe in my heart of hearts that I accomplished what I set out to do for West Virginia,” Mr. Manchin said in a video message posted to X. “I have made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for reelection to the United States Senate.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee — the Senate GOP’s campaign arm — made it clear how confident it is about flipping the seat to red from blue. “We like our odds in West Virginia,” the chairman of the committee, Senator Daines, said in a statement.
Mr. Manchin faced an uphill battle to retain his Senate seat. First elected in a special election in 2010 while he was serving as his state’s governor, the senator won a narrow victory in 2018 just two years after President Trump won the state by more than 40 points.
Next year, he was likely to face his state’s popular GOP governor, Jim Justice, in the general election. According to recent polling, Mr. Manchin was behind Mr. Justice by six points.
The senator did make it clear that his life in public service is not over, and hinted at a possible independent run for the White House next year. “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,” Mr. Machin said.
He seemed to test a presidential message in his farewell video, lambasting the partisanship in the nation’s capital and how it disincentivizes solving serious problems.
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