Manchin leaves door open to White House bid in 2024
Cami Mondeaux
Video Embed
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) left the door open to a White House run in 2024, teasing that while he could be the centrist candidate voters are looking for, there are “a lot of different players in the game.”
Manchin, who is up for reelection in 2024, has established a reputation as a centrist Democrat willing to work across the aisle. But he’s also drawn the ire of the Left for opposing more progressive elements of the Democrats’ agenda. Manchin held considerable power in the last Congress, in which the Senate was split evenly and Democrats needed to secure his support for party-line votes.
THREE TIMES JOE MANCHIN HAS TEAMED WITH REPUBLICANS AHEAD OF CRITICAL 2024 DECISION
“In all seriousness, the only thing I’m concerned about is what can I do to bring the country together?” Manchin told CBS News’s Robert Costa. “We’ve got to come together — Americans want to be united. They want to be together, and right now, we’re growing further apart.”
Manchin declined to say whether he’d run as a third-party presidential candidate in 2024, but he also danced around the question of whether he’s planning to run again for his West Virginia Senate seat.
“I don’t know what the next chapter will be. I don’t know what the future lies. I really don’t,” Manchin said. “People basically are going to be looking for somebody. I’m not saying whether it’s me or somebody else or whether it can be [the] people that have tried to work in the middle.”
Should Manchin decide to run for reelection, he would be one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the 2024 cycle, running in a state that former President Donald Trump carried by 38.9 percentage points in 2020.
Manchin has long prided himself on his centrist bona fides, arguing that “neither party has all the answers.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Sen. Manchin has always been one of the most bipartisan Members of Congress and will continue to work with anyone — Republicans and Democrats — to address the issues facing our nation and improve the lives of West Virginians and Americans,” a spokesperson for Manchin told the Washington Examiner.
The Democratic primary field for the 2024 presidential election, if one emerges at all, has not yet begun to take shape. President Joe Biden is expected to announce a reelection bid in the coming weeks.