Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia told reporters on Monday that he would not follow Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona as she exited the Democratic Party.
Mr Manchin’s remarks come after Ms Sinema announced on Friday that she would leave the Democratic Party to become an independent, though she will still caucus with Democrats and keep her committee memberships.
Ms Sinema’s announcement came after Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock won his runoff election in Georgia, which gave Democrats 51 seats in the Senate.
But Mr Manchin told a gaggle of reporters, including CNN’s Manu Raju, that he would look at everything, though he said he had not made a decision about whether he’d seek re-election.
“I'll look at every circumstance, and I have no intention of doing anything right now,” he said. “Whether I do something later I can't tell you what the future is going to bring.”
Mr Manchin said he planned to work with Ms Sinema the same way he has in the past. Both Mr Manchin and Ms Sinema are more fiscally conservative than most other members of the Democratic caucus and support keeping the filibuster, the 60-vote threshold that most legislation is required to overcome to pass the upper chamber.
Still, the move comes as Mr Manchin weighs whether he will seek a third full term. Mr Manchin first won re-election in 2010 in a special election before winning his first full term in 2012. He won a second full term in 2018 despite the fact former president Donald Trump had won every county in the coal-heavy West Virginia.
In 2020, Mr Trump once again won every county in the state. Earlier this year, Mr Manchin endorsed Republican Representative David McKinley against Republican Representative Alex Mooney.
Mr Mooney later beat Mr McKinley, who had voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and last month announced he would run for the Republican nomination to challenge Mr Manchin in 2024. Mr Manchin is the only Democratic statewide elected official from West Virginia.
