The political careers of Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) are effectively over at the conclusion of the 118th Congress. But both men are now openly flirting with independent bids for their Senate seats that are likely to be entirely fruitless.
Manchin, the last Democrat to reach Congress from the state of West Virginia, announced months ago that he will forgo running for another term in office as he stared down a nearly impossible general election matchup against popular Gov. Jim Justice (R-WV).
Menendez, on the other hand, hails from a reliably Democratic state but is attempting to fend off a growing list of felony charges that he and his wife accepted bribes in the form of gold bars and cash from the government of Egypt.
Now, it seems both men are publicly flirting with the possibility of independent campaigns for the Senate seats they currently hold. With Democrats nearly extinct in West Virginia, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is hoping that an independent run from Manchin will keep the seat out of Republican hands. Menendez, meanwhile, has a growing list of legal bills to account for and an independent campaign would help him raise money through the general election.
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But regardless of what each senator does, it is extremely unlikely that either man will be in the Senate come January 2025. The odds of the incredibly popular Justice losing the West Virginia race are fairly slim, even if Manchin were to shed the Democratic Party label. As for Menendez, even an independent bid will not make him competitive in the Garden State, but he could succeed in putting the seat in play for Republicans by siphoning off a sufficient number of votes from the Democratic nominee — likely to be either Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) or New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy — to give the GOP a fighting chance in an otherwise safely blue state.
In an election year full of independent candidacies at the presidential level, the chaos of well-funded third-party bids is poised to make its way down the ballot to Senate races. And come November, the futility of these exercises will be laid bare, as every third-party candidate falls short and voters send either a Democrat or a Republican to represent them in Washington, D.C.