OPINION:
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III announced his retirement last week, setting off speculation on what the man who identifies as a “centrist, moderate, conservative Democrat” might do next.
But it’s not clear how voting in lock-step with President Biden’s agenda nearly 88% of the time qualifies as centrist or moderate, much less conservative, using FiveThirtyEight.com’s scoring of Mr. Manchin’s voting record.
Mr. Manchin, 76, has been in the Senate since he won a special election to replace the late Sen. Robert Byrd in 2010. While it’s true that his support for Mr. Biden has been less enthusiastic than that of his blue-state colleagues, his votes have also been consistently at odds with the mood of the state. In 2020, a whopping 68.6% of West Virginia voters endorsed then-President Donald Trump — a figure surpassed only in Wyoming.
Mr. Manchin, for instance, voted to convict Mr. Trump in both of the Democrats’ politically driven impeachment trials. He also backed the Inflation Reduction Act, Mr. Biden’s disingenuously named $891 billion spending extravaganza, which has done nothing to reduce inflation, but has become a slush fund for environmentalist swindles.
Mr. Manchin did buck his party to approve Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, two of Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, but he stood against the other, Amy Coney Barrett. He also approved Mr. Biden’s elevation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the high court, despite her curious inability in confirmation hearings to say what a woman is, claiming such things are unknowable because she’s “not a biologist.”
On the positive side of the ledger, the Mountain State senator refused to go along with Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s scheme in January 2022 to abolish the filibuster so Democrats could ram through their radical agenda over Republican opposition. He also voted to terminate Mr. Biden’s national COVID-19 emergency that, by last fall, had long outlasted any justification it may have had.
Mr. Manchin’s impending departure clears the way for an almost certain GOP pickup in the narrowly divided Senate, now controlled by Democrats. The only question is whom that Republican will be. A battle is likely between representatives of the GOP’s country club-establishment wing and the tea party conservative wing — with Gov. Jim Justice and five-term Rep. Alex Mooney appearing as early favorites.
It’s already getting heated. In an email fundraising appeal Friday on Mr. Mooney’s behalf, Mary Vought, executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, reminded recipients: “Justice is the former Democrat-turned-Republican who endorsed Joe Biden’s budget-busting COVID spending bills; supported the COVID lockdowns; and proposed the largest tax increase in state history.”
The two will square off in a May 14 primary, with the winner all but assured of moving up to the Senate.
GOP strategists will be relieved that campaign resources reserved for a West Virginia challenge can now be redirected to two other Democrat-held seats in the 2024 cycle that are ripe for pickup. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana has a 91% pro-Biden voting record, and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown’s support clocks in at 98.5% — both far to the left of their constituents.
Leaving the Senate may very well wind up being the most conservative thing Mr. Manchin has done.
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