Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) appears to be on the warpath against his own party as Gov. Jim Justice (R-WV) enters the West Virginia Senate race.
Manchin, a vulnerable Democrat up for reelection in 2024 in a ruby-red state, has recently begun bucking the party line more consistently, even though he hasn’t declared whether he will run for reelection in 2024.
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While most Senate Democrats are echoing President Joe Biden’s opposition to negotiating with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) over the debt ceiling, Manchin continues to urge the president to do the opposite.
“The clock is ticking on this debt ceiling crisis and the American people will pay the economic price if President Biden continues to refuse to sit down and negotiate a commonsense compromise that would prevent a historic default,” Manchin said in a statement Thursday evening. “Speaker McCarthy did his job and he passed a bill that would prevent default and finally begin to rein in federal spending. While I do not agree with everything proposed, it remains the only bill moving through Congress that would prevent default and that cannot be ignored.
Early in the week, he threatened to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show if the administration continued to “liberalize what we are supposed to invest in over the next 10 years,” emphasizing he would do “everything in his power to prevent that from happening.”
Manchin has been frustrated with how the legislation has been implemented. As the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, he threatened to sue the Biden administration in the last month after the Treasury Department unveiled stricter electric vehicle tax rules, which he slammed as insufficient when they were unveiled.
Another break between the West Virginia Democrat and the leader of his party over energy emerged this week when Manchin joined Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) in co-sponsoring a bill that would reinstate solar power tariffs, which were suspended by Biden.
“The United States relies on foreign nations, like China, for far too many of our energy needs, and failing to enforce our existing trade laws undermines the goals of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act to onshore our energy supply chains, including solar,” Manchin said in a statement. “I cannot fathom why the Administration and Congress would consider extending that reliance any longer and am proud to join this CRA to rescind the rule.”
Senate Democrats and Biden tread lightly around the West Virginia Democrat, careful not to criticize him specifically. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sidestepped a question from a reporter on Wednesday when asked about Manchin’s threat to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, a key legislative achievement for Biden and Senate Democrats.
“Look, the bottom line is our caucus is overwhelmingly for the Inflation Reduction Act,” Schumer said.
The West Virginia senator did join his party this week in voting to advance the Equal Rights Amendment legislation on Thursday, a resolution to remove the deadline for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, a proposed amendment to the Constitution. However, the resolution failed 51-47, and the West Virginia senator voted once it was clear the resolution would not pass. Some Republicans in West Virginia said they expect Manchin to continue to break with his party as speculation continues to grow about whether he’ll run for reelection.
“Anything that keeps him in the public eye the most, I think he assumes the more attention is good attention,” said Rob Cornelius, a longtime GOP campaign consultant in West Virginia. “He has to buck the party in order to keep happy the voters he thinks will come home to him in West Virginia, who are now Republicans or Democrats who supported Trump by the hundreds of thousands. He thinks he can get those people back to trust him again, and the problem is he’s gone both ways on so many issues.”
“Now, he wants the credit, you know, when the alleged Inflation Reduction Act brings in a zillion dollars, but then he wants to say he doesn’t support it when it’s clear it could hurt his constituents. He wants to take all the credit and not take any of the blame,” Cornelius added.
Manchin continues to emphasize his recent decisions have nothing to do with the 2024 race and projects confidence about his chances.
“Every opponent you have is strong and threatening or they wouldn’t jump in if they didn’t think they had a chance, so you take them all seriously,” Manchin said to reporters on Thursday. “I lost one race in 1996. I made a vow that I’ll never lose another race,” he added.
Manchin soon will have more chances to undermine the administration in the weeks to come, including Julie Su’s nomination to become labor secretary. Democrats can’t afford to lose a single vote with Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) lingering absence and all Republicans expected to vote against her nomination. Manchin is expected to meet with Su next week but has already indicated that he has concerns with her nomination. Biden’s pick to serve as the top telecommunications regulator for the Federal Communications Commission, Gigi Sohn, withdrew her nomination last month after Manchin made it clear he would oppose her nomination.
Jon Kott, a former communications director and senior adviser to Manchin, said reporters are paying more attention to the senator’s splits with Biden and Democratic leadership with the 2024 Senate race coming closer, but nothing has changed.
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“This is no different than he’s been in the 10 or 12 years I’ve known him,” Kott said. “He looks at an issue, [and] he decides if it works for West Virginia. Remember, he’s a red state Democrat — very different from being, you know, a Connecticut Democrat or a Delaware Democrat.”
“His view is based on ‘Does it help West Virginia?’ And if it does, he’ll vote for it. It just so happens people start paying attention around election time and they dig into stuff, but this is exactly how he acts every day of the year,” Kott added.
