The West Virginia Democrat senator Joe Manchin’s announcement that he will not run for re-election next year has triggered speculation that he might instead launch a bid for the White House as the candidate of No Labels, a third-party group which has attracted significant funding.
Manchin has long flirted with such a bid, brushing off warnings that by running he would only help elect Donald Trump, the likely Republican candidate who is far ahead in the party’s 2024 nomination race.
On Thursday, announcing his decision to quit the Senate, Manchin pointed to a possible presidential run. He said: “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.
“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 mobilise the middle and bring Americans together.”
Polling shows that most Americans do not want a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump next year, deeming the former too old, at nearly 81, and the latter, 77, too damaged by his chaotic presidency, assault on democracy and extreme criminal and civil predicament.
Nonetheless, a rematch seems all but assured. Accordingly, Manchin’s announcement prompted concern across the political spectrum.
Bill Kristol, a Never Trumper on the right, said: “Tuesday night’s results [in Kentucky, Ohio and elsewhere] were good news for Democrats. Manchin’s announcement today was bad news – bad for Democratic prospects for holding the Senate in 2024, bad for No Labels implications in the presidential race.”
Olivia Troye, an adviser to Mike Pence when he was vice-president to Donald Trump, said: “The odds of [Manchin] running on the No Labels ticket for president have likely increased exponentially. If he does run, it will split the votes and, in the end, only help Trump in the 2024 election.”
Rahna Epting, political action executive director of MoveOn, a progressive political action committee, also issued a stark warning: “Every independent analyst reaches the same conclusion: a No Labels ticket has no chance of winning a single electoral college vote in any state. Instead, their campaign would only ensure Trump’s re-election.”
Other third-party candidates have already declared. Most prominent is Robert F Kennedy Jr, the anti-vaccine campaigner whose conspiracy-laced message shows signs of siphoning more votes from Trump than from Joe Biden. Two academics, Cornel West and Jill Stein, offer challenges from the left.
But with Trump-Biden polling in swing states on a razor’s edge, any further move or comment from Manchin will now attract most attention.
Now 76, Manchin was governor of West Virginia before entering the Senate in 2011. As a Democrat in elected office in the fossil fuels- and Republican-dominated state, he became a rarity or oddity: a political coelacanth, a holdover from an earlier age, drifting on partisan tides.
But even fossils must pass on. Having accepted his likely doom as a senator, Manchin seems set to make one last pitch for a place in history.
In its own statement, No Labels called him a “great leader … a tireless voice for America’s commonsense majority and a longtime ally of the No Labels movement”.
In words that will strike fear into all who fear a second Trump term, it added: “Regarding our No Labels Unity presidential ticket, we are gathering input from our members across the country to understand the kind of leaders they would like to see in the White House.
“As we have said from the beginning, we will make a decision by early 2024 about whether we will nominate a unity presidential ticket and who will be on it.”
Whether he runs or not, Manchin’s decision does seem likely to at least hand Republicans a Senate seat. Greeting Manchin’s announcement that he will not run for re-election in the senate, Steve Daines of Montana, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said simply: “We like our odds in West Virginia.”
