US Democratic leader Joe Manchin, who his party has often backed for the last two years, said that he would not seek re-elections in 2024. This hurt the democratic sentiments of protecting the thin Senate majority in the 2024 elections.
He said he would not participate in the race for the Presidential elections in 2024. Still, he would travel around the country and hold camps to see if people were interested in mobilizing the middle and bringing all the Americans together.
The move taken by the 76-year-old lawmaker will make it challenging for the Democrats to retain their seat in West Virginia. The Republicans hold the governor’s office in the state and the rest of the congressional delegation in the state, which Donald Trump had won over Joe Biden in the 2020 elections by a margin of 69-30%.
Senator Steve Daines, the head of the Republican senators’ campaign arm, said that they like the odds in West Virginia. In this year’s early stages, Manchin flirted publicly after leaving the Democratic party and appeared at an event in July with the “No Labels” Group. At the event, he talked about a third-party candidate who would run for the Presidential elections 2024.
The polling in the country currently shows dissatisfaction with Former President Donald Trump and the incumbent Biden. A poll in August showed that 8% of the respondents would have voted for Joe Manchin if he had run for re-election as an independent candidate in the 2024 Presidential elections.
In a statement, No Labels said they would decide by the early 2024s who would be given the ticket. The leave of Manchin will also raise the stake for the Democrats in several other Senate races, including the Republican-leaning Montana and Ohio and highly competitive Pennsylvania and Arizona.
The Democrats currently hold more seats than the Republicans as they move toward the 2024 elections. Three seats held by the Democrats are in the states where Former President Donald Trump won in the 2020 elections. At the same time, there are no Republican seats up for the 2024 elections in the states where the voters chose Biden.
A spokesperson for the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, David Bergstein, said the party was confident in its chances for strengthening the majority. The co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic consultancy, Matt Bennett, said that he thought Manchin would talk to the people around the country about why the country requires moderation.
Bennett further said that he feels that Manchin feels with justification that he has a unique voice and a message that resonates, and so many hopes that he puts behind the work of a President.
Jim Justice, the Republican Governor of West Virginia, has already launched a campaign to select the party’s Senate. Justice was a democrat when he was first elected to the government in 2016. However, a year later, he switched parties and stood for re-elections, where he won office by 65% votes in 2020.
During President Biden’s tenure, Joe Manchin was a crucial vote in the significant pieces of legislation since he was elected in 2010. Manchin was responsible for representing a moderately conservative state.
Manchin had secured major concessions and scaled back his party’s legislative goals along with Senator Krysten Sinema, who switched her registration from Independent to Democratic in December. Both of them stood together in supporting the filibuster rule of the Senator, which required 60 votes out of the 100 legislature members.
Manchin wrote in an opinion that he had seen during his period in Washington that every party having power always wants to exercise absolute power. The Senate has evolved to make absolute power difficult while still providing potential solutions to the issues that the country is facing, and he also believes that it is the best quality for the Senate.
The Republican senates supported Manchin’s commitment to bipartisanship. Republican senator Mitt Romney said he would miss the American patriot in the Senate. However, their friendship and loyalty to American values will not end soon. Mitt Romney is also not seeking re-election in 2024.
Manchin insisted that his only motivation was the coal-producing state of West Virginia and an eye for fiscal responsibility. He said in a statement that West Virginia is not as divided as Washington wants people to believe. He further noted that West Virginia shares a typical value of freedom, family, dignity, democracy, and a belief that they can overcome all the challenges together. He further stated that they need to conquer the entire America again and not let the divisive hatred pull them apart further.