Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Wednesday he regretted endorsing failed 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, adding he would be “open” to throwing his weight behind President Trump’s 2020 re-election bid.
“I’m open to supporting the person who I think is best for my country and my state. If his policies are best, I’ll be right there,” Manchin told Politico in an interview published Wednesday.
“I’m with him sometimes more than other Republican senators are with him,” he continued later in the interview. “A lot of the policies he’s done [have] been good for the state.”
Manchin, who is facing his own re-election contest in November, recalled how Clinton asked him whether she could campaign in West Virginia in 2016 so she could explain her comments about wanting “to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
“I said, ‘That’s a bad idea, you shouldn’t come,’” Manchin remembered.
“It was a mistake. It was a mistake politically,” he said, referring to his support of Clinton.
Manchin, a former West Virginia governor who was elected to the Senate in 2010, complained that Washington Democrats were “making it more difficult” for him to represent the party and his state, which Trump won by 42 points in 2016.
But he said he remains confident about his chances in November, having won his last race in 2012 by 24 points.
Manchin will compete against Republican challenger Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia’s attorney general, in the general election on Nov. 6.
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