Will Joe Manchin run for president?

With President Biden and Donald Trump currently the most likely nominees of their respective parties and remarkably unpopular, it seems the presidency could be up for grabs in 2024. Could Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) make a bid for the White House? And would it work?

Until Manchin’s agreement to support the improbably named “Inflation Reduction Act,” his actions during the Biden administration looked like any Democratic Senator in a conservative state trying to thread the needle for re-election. After winning several statewide elections by comfortable margins, Manchin only won re-election in 2018 by less than 4 points and failed to top 50 percent. Worse, Manchin ran over 20 points behind his Republican colleague, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).

Opposing much of Biden’s agenda in 2021 made Manchin popular with Republicans but severely damaged his standing with Democrats. According to a Morning Consult West Virginia poll, his approval among Democrats fell from 63 percent down to 44 percent from early 2021 to April of 2022, while his approval among Republicans shot up from 35 percent to 69 percent. His overall approval in West Virginia went from 51 percent to 57 percent.

Based on that early polling, it looked like Manchin had successfully positioned himself to survive re-election in a Republican state, with only a potential Democratic primary challenge to worry about. However, given the extreme unlikelihood of any Democrat other than Manchin keeping the seat, it would seem improbable that Democrats would throw Manchin overboard.

No more country roads

Why would Manchin not run for re-election and instead tilt at the presidential windmill?

Perhaps because his time as a D.C. power broker is likely coming to an end.

If Republicans take the Senate majority, Manchin is just a minority senator with little leverage. Lost in all the RINO insults hurled at Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) is the fact that both have generally stuck with their GOP colleagues. Manchin may have little to no leverage with a Republican majority.

Manchin only matters to the Democrats when they need his vote. His centrist views are anathema to the leftist ‘intelligentsia’ and activists who dominate party leadership. If Democrats pick up one seat, they can play Manchin off against their other thorn, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). A two-seat gain for Democrats ends even that leverage.

There is nothing worse in politics than the abrupt shift from powerful to irrelevant.

But a run for president could be just the tonic.

The question for Manchin would be whether to run in a Democratic primary or to run as an independent straight out of the gate. If he were to choose the independent route, he most likely would be running to make a statement rather than making a legitimate bid for Oval Office.

The record of third party/independent candidacies is pretty poor. A candidate from a new party has never won the presidency since at least before the Civil War. The best performance was Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, who finished second and managed to throw the election to the execrable Woodrow Wilson. Since that election, no independent has so much as carried a state, except for purely regional candidates in 1924, 1948 and 1968. The best a national candidate has done was Ross Perot in 1992, managing 18.9 percent of the popular vote and almost winning Maine.

Manchin might be able to finagle the nomination of the embryonic Forward Party, giving him some semblance of organization and fundraising. And he would be a perfect fit, given that the Forward Party appears to be half attitude, half McKinsey-style consulting firm and totally searching for an actual identity.

Manchin might even get some real traction with voters.

Perhaps in a race between an 81-year-old Biden and a 78-year-old Trump, voters will opt for the relative youth and vigor of a 77-year-old Manchin.

The reality of an independent bid is Manchin in the public spotlight, with his rhetoric forcing both major party nominees to react. Manchin would be a spoiler candidate with the ability to tip the race. He would most certainly cost either the Democrats or the Republicans the White House, at least that is what the eventual loser will say.

The end for Joe Biden?

A more interesting alternative is a Manchin bid for the Democratic nomination.

Manchin announcing for president would almost certainly be the end for Biden’s re-election hopes.

While Democratic voters are not necessarily thirsting for Manchin, they are looking for someone other than Biden. Only 37 percent of Democrats want Biden to run again in a recent YouGov poll, making his 84 percent approval rating with his fellow partisans looking quite hollow.

Out of touch with the loudest segment of the party, Manchin could bet on appealing to moderate and more centrist Democratic voters — or even to voters repelled by the rancor that is endemic on the progressive left. More so, he could position himself as a winner. After all, Biden swept the Democratic field primarily based on a fear that the other candidates could not beat Trump.

Today, the script has flipped for Biden. Trump, in spite of his continued buffoonery and mounting legal problems, is now leading Biden in several state and national polls. Biden’s national approval remains stubbornly stuck in the low 40s. Vice President Kamala Harris looks like hardly a better option with an even worse approval rating than Biden, 6 points lower in the YouGov poll.

Perhaps Manchin figures he could win if facing a scrum of hard-core progressives and a stumbling Vice-President. He would have a difficult time of it. The Democratic primary process, while improved for moderates in that it has whittled away many of the activist-dominated caucuses, remains trouble for a candidate who cannot get majorities. The proportional allocation of delegates is set up for a long primary process, provided multiple candidates can maintain some strength.

With Manchin so detested by the liberals, it seems highly unlikely their favorites would slowly bow out as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) did for Biden. As sitting vice president, even a wooden candidate like Kamala Harris should be able to last. That could lead to a brokered convention, where it seems likely the progressives would sort things out amongst themselves and leave Manchin out in the cold.

A Manchin candidacy looks to be akin to Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 challenge to Lyndon Johnson — ultimately quixotic, but the start of a feeding frenzy that brings down an unpopular incumbent.

And that just might be the goal for Manchin.

Will he decide to get the last laugh on the Biden administration and their attacks on him by bringing down the whole edifice?

In a last twist of fate, a collapse of Biden’s re-election hopes could be the path for a truly progressive Democratic nominee. And wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony? Joe Manchin, bete noire of the liberals, hands the left just what they want.

Keith Naughton, Ph.D., is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm. Naughton is a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant. Follow him on Twitter @KNaughton711.