West Virginia voters are not happy with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) after he decided to vote for President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
As recently as May, 57% of West Virginia voters approved of the job Manchin was doing as a senator. According to a new poll from West Virginia radio station WMOV, that number has now plummeted to just 26%.
Worse for Manchin, the same poll says that if he were to face reelection against either West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey or Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV), Manchin would lose. (Manchin doesn’t have to run for reelection until 2024.)
It’s hard to believe that Manchin would throw away his Senate career on legislation as inconsequential as the Inflation Reduction Act. For starters, as the Congressional Budget Office confirmed yesterday, the bill actually adds to the deficit all the way through 2026. It will be hard to convince voters he helped reduce inflation in 2024 when his signature piece of legislation only made it worse.
Manchin may be pinning his hopes on a side deal he made with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on separate legislation that would complete a pipeline to West Virginia and make some reforms to federal environmental permitting laws that drive up the cost of construction.
Problem is, the socialists in Manchin’s Democratic Party aren’t going to allow his permitting reform bill to pass. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Thursday that he would be releasing a letter with 59 House Democrats opposing Manchin’s permitting deal. There is no way permitting reform can pass the House with 60 Democratic defections.
The best that can be said for the Inflation Reduction Act is that it did not include all the carbon-cutting measures that were in Biden’s original Build Back Better legislation. Those provisions would have killed jobs and driven up the cost of energy in West Virginia. Manchin should get some credit for putting Biden’s BBB out of its misery. And he did. West Virginian voters loved him for it.
But the public simply never bought into the idea that the Inflation Reduction Act would actually reduce inflation. Instead, the vast majority of them correctly believe it will raise inflation.
The 2024 election is a long way off, and maybe Manchin can deliver a bipartisan victory for West Virginia voters if the Republicans take over the Senate this November. But 26% is a low number, and it might just get lower when Manchin’s permit reform legislation dies.
