Senator Manchin Embarks on 2-Month Tour to Explore Third-Party Run Option

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., stated that he will travel around the country for two months before deciding whether to launch a third-party campaign for president.

Speaking at The Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit on Tuesday, the 76-year-old Manchin explained how Americans aren’t satisfied with the current 2024 options (President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump) at the moment.

“I start in January, I’ll be two months on the road,” Manchin told WSJ’s Molly Ball. “And all we’re trying to do is just mobilize people like myself who feel like they’re homeless, politically homeless.

“I don’t recognize the Democratic Party, that I have a D by my name. I have a lot of Republicans that don’t recognize the Republican Party that have Rs by their name. So, the Grand Old Party (GOP), and I guess the Blue Dog Democrats, they’re homeless. And I hear it every day.”

Manchin later added, “What I can tell you is, there might be a movement, there might not. That depends. I really don’t know.”

“I don’t know if there’s a movement; I really don’t,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s enough people who say, ‘Well, what the hell, I’ll just vote for this person.’ We’re making you all pick a side, and the options aren’t real good.”

Manchin added that he only would run if he thought he could win and has no desire to be “a spoiler.”

A recent WSJ survey indicated little support for a Manchin run for president. Respondents, by a 44% to 18% margin, said they had an unfavorable rather than favorable view of Manchin.

Republicans, Democrats, and independents all said they viewed Manchin more in an unfavorable than favorable light.

Manchin garnered only 3% support as a presidential candidate as the potential presidential nominee of the No Labels group, WSJ reported.

Manchin announced Nov. 9 that he would not seek reelection next year. After winning a special election in 2010 to fill the seat following Sen. Robert Byrd’s death, he was reelected twice.

West Virginia voted for Trump in the last two national elections and has become a solid red state. Republicans, who currently are in the U.S. Senate minority 51-49, hope the seat helps them win back control of the chamber next year.

At Tuesday’s event, Manchin predicted that it would be years before the Mountaineer State voted to send another Democrat to the Senate.

“Not in my lifetime,” he said. “I don’t see that happening. I think our state has changed so much,” citing what he called the Democratic Party’s hostility to coal production.