Despite what folks might have heard and the impression the man himself gives off in his cagey media moments, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) isn’t really all that hard to figure out. Or more to the point, despite what everyone around him does, Joe Manchin is totally sure of who he is.
“I don’t give a s***, you understand? I just don’t give a s***,” he explained during his most recent campaign, in 2018. “Don’t care if I get elected, don’t care if I get defeated — how about that? If they think because I’m up for election that I can be wrangled into voting for s*** that I don’t like and can’t explain, they’re all crazy. … Elections do not bother me or scare me. I’m going to continue to do the same thing I’ve always done, extremely independent.”
Manchin hasn’t gotten any less ornery, or less powerful, since then.
The 2022 midterm elections looked to be a lessening of the Manchin-centric dynamic in the Senate that has affected just about every major piece of legislation since 2020. After the reelection of Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) pushed the Democratic Party to 51 seats, even Manchin was joking about the pressure being off. “I don’t have to be 50 anymore,” Manchin told the Washington Examiner. Legendarily frustrated with the mechanics and politics of passing legislation, he also told the Independent’s congressional reporter Eric Garcia that he was “tickled to death” with Warnock’s win because it would make moving things through committees, which will now have not just Democratic chairs but majorities, easier.
But that was Wednesday, Dec. 7, and things change fast in Washington, D.C. By Friday, Dec. 9, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was making headlines and changing narratives by announcing her departure from the Democratic Party to become an independent. Although some deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had clearly been made because she was confirmed to be keeping her committee assignments, it was back to 50 seats for Team Blue, at least nominally.
Cue the flood of speculation that Manchin might be next to change parties, speculation that has been floating around for a long time in Washington punditry circles.
There are important differences between the two senators who have most annoyed those within the Democratic Party over the last few years. Sinema started her career with the Green Party and even ran an unsuccessful campaign as an independent before becoming a Democrat. Manchin is a lifelong, ingrained Democrat from a Democratic political family in West Virginia who first won elected office for his party when Sinema was just 6 years old. Sinema has been bluntly told, in word and action, that the Arizona Democratic Party and national Democratic Party are going to primary her in 2024. Manchin’s last Democratic primary opponent lost by 40-plus points, and with the state-level Democratic Party in a shambles, Manchin isn’t going to face a serious primary challenge.
He will, however, face a very red West Virginia electorate that would have been unrecognizable to young Joe from Farmington when he first arrived in the West Virginia Legislature in 1982. When Manchin won his first statewide race in 2000 to become West Virginia secretary of state, the Democratic Party was on a centurylong roll of near total domination. Only the governor and a handful of delegates and state senators were Republican. Yet as Manchin’s fortunes rose, first to his own stint as governor, a successful reelection campaign, and then moving up to the Senate after the death of Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia changed rapidly. Next year will see the West Virginia Democratic Party a shell of its former self, with only 13 Democrats in the House of Delegates and the state Senate combined and Manchin the lone statewide officeholder for Team Blue.
Thus, the speculation that Manchin might jump ship to Team Red or Independent Island after his Arizona colleague became the next object of rumination for political watchers.
Don’t bet on it. Manchin is right where he wants to be, with Schumer and President Joe Biden still needing to placate him, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Republicans knowing they can work with him, and a news media that he has become very adept at keeping both at arm’s length while still at his beck and call. He has mastered talking to the national news media and Washington press corps one way and talking to West Virginia news media another. With Sinema becoming more of a wild card and an incoming GOP House of Representatives that will be constantly battling the Democratic Senate, Manchin is once again at the fulcrum of the political power levers.
When Manchin tells frequent interviewer for West Virginia MetroNews Hoppy Kercheval, “I’m giving everything I got, and I still have more to give. … I’ve got a little more in the tank,” we can absolutely believe what he is telling us. At 75 years of age, which would make him 77 on election night in 2024, discerning if he means for the next two years or the next eight years is much harder — and a question Manchin isn’t going to give a straight answer to. Because Joe Manchin knows without a shadow of a doubt more about Joe Manchin than anyone else does and intends to keep it that way.
Anyone telling you differently just doesn’t understand him.
Andrew Donaldson (@four4thefire) is a widely published writer and is the host of Heard Tell.
