Joe Manchin’s curious voting decisions have put him at a political crossroads in West Virginia.
Republicans won’t vote for Manchin and Democrats aren’t thrilled with him.
But Joe Manchin just made one announcement that will put a big smile on President Biden’s face.
The rise and fall of Joe Manchin
Joe Manchin has arguably been the most popular personal politician in West Virginia for the past two decades.
However, the incumbent Democrat Senator changed his entire political future with one vote.
For the length of his political career, Democrat Joe Manchin has played the part of a centrist.
But he supported Chuck Schumer for Senate Leader and votes with Democrats the majority of the time.
Manchin won praise from conservatives when he refused to nuke the long-standing filibuster and stopped the far-Left’s radical proposals in the Senate.
Manchin was again made a hero by many on the Right when he held up President Joe Biden’s disastrous spending boondoggle, the so-called “Build Back Better” bill.
However, the Biden Administration, Schumer, and even Bill Gates spent months pressuring Manchin to change his mind.
In the end, Manchin caved and agreed to a scaled-down version of “Build Back Better,” as he – along with Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema – both voted in favor of the ironically named “Inflation Reduction Act.”
The act has not reduced inflation in any real way.
Instead, the bill just put the country further into debt by spending billions of dollars on left-wing projects.
However, the vote immediately changed the perception of Manchin in his home state.
Manchin’s political future
Manchin then had a difficult decision to make.
Does he run for re-election to the Senate or does he run for the White House?
And does he run as a Democrat, Independent, or Republican?
Less than a month ago, Manchin said all those options were on the table and that he only wanted to “unite the country.”
President Joe Biden would rather not face a Primary challenge from his Right in 2024 and he surely doesn’t want to see a Democrat Senator running as a third-party candidate in the General Election.
But he no longer has to worry about those prospects.
Statewide, not nationwide
“I’m not running for President of the United States,” Manchin told Metro News during a radio interview broadcast from the State Capitol in Charleston, West Virginia. “I can assure you of that as we sit here today.”
In the interview, Manchin stopped short of announcing he will indeed run for re-election to the Upper Chamber.
However, not running a national campaign likely means he will run one statewide.
Re-election will be an uphill battle for Manchin.
Polling shows him trailing Governor Jim Justice and in a dead heat against Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Representative Alex Mooney, who has already announced his intentions to run for the seat.
