A political action committee with connections to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is delivering early body blows to Senator Joe Manchin well ahead of the 2024 election. Politico reported One Nation PAC is spending $1 million on media ads in the Mountain State attacking Manchin for supporting the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act.
The ad shows Manchin with President Biden during the bill signing as a narrator says, “100,000 West Virginia jobs are at risk thanks to Senator Joe Manchin falling in line with D.C. liberals to pass Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.”
This is a first shot in what is expected to be a long, expensive and brutal campaign for the seat now held by Manchin, and it comes even before Manchin has announced whether he is running for re-election. Manchin narrowly defeated Republican Patrick Morrisey in 2018 and polls show he struggles to get above 50 percent.
A Morning Consult Poll last fall showed that the spike in approval ratings Manchin received after killing Biden’s Build Back Better legislation in December 2021 dissipated when he supported the Inflation Reduction bill. His approval rating fell from nearly 50 percent to 42 percent, while his disapproval rating rose to just above 50 percent.
Keep an eye out to see if the Democratic Senate Majority PAC or the No Labels PAC responds to the One Nation ads with a campaign of their own to either help prop up Manchin or attack Justice or Representative Alex Mooney.
Control of the Senate is at stake in 2024 and Republicans believe Manchin is vulnerable, and McConnell wants to take him out. McConnell has personally lobbied Governor Jim Justice to run for the Senate seat and it appears that has worked. Justice is expected to announce within the next couple weeks that he’s in the race.
Justice will have to win a Republican primary before he tackles Manchin. Second District Representative Alex Mooney announced last November that he is in the race, but Justice does not seem to be taking Mooney seriously.
“Who in the world in the state of West Virginia knows that Alex Mooney is a West Virginian?” Justice said during a media briefing Wednesday. “The truth of the matter is, Alex Mooney is from Maryland. I promise you, from Clarksburg south, nobody has hardly seen him.”
Justice also said he had only met Mooney one time, but the Mooney campaign responded with pictures showing at least seven times the two had been together.
Mooney is coming off a successful fundraising stretch. Federal filings show he collected $383,000 in the first quarter and has $1.3 million on hand. Manchin raised less—$238,000—but he has a whopping $9.7 million in the bank. However, Mooney has a commitment from the Club for Growth political action committee to spend up to $10 million on his campaign.
The early ads, the PAC commitments and the fundraising all indicate just how expensive the 2024 Senate race is going to be, and how each of the candidates and their supporters is going to try to get a jump on the competition.