U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia made clear in several interviews Monday, including his appearance on MetroNews Talkline, that he is not a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President.
“It’s a hard no,” Manchin answered when I pressed him on the question.
However, that definitive answer was a pivot from his answer to the question earlier in the day, and a significant change from a story being floated on Sunday.
When asked on CNN early Monday morning if he will run against Vice President Kamala Harris, he equivocated. “I don’t think that, I don’t know. I just, we’ll see,” he said.
All the morning network shows were asking him because just a few hours earlier the idea was circulating that Manchin was exploring getting in the race.
CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeted this just before seven o’clock Sunday evening: “Sources close to Sen. Joe Manchin, Independent of WV, say he’s considering re-registering as a Democrat and throwing his hat into the ring.”
The Washington Post published a story about Manchin’s presidential aspirations two hours later. “Sen. Joe Manchin III (I-W.Va.) is considering re-registering as a Democrat for the party’s presidential nomination in the wake of President Biden’s announcement Sunday that he will exit the campaign, according to a Manchin advisor.”
But something shifted between Sunday afternoon and late Monday morning. His tune changed completely. I suspect he saw an opportunity to re-enter the presidential discussion, but quickly learned Democratic Party leaders were lining up behind Kamala Harris.
Manchin, who is a moderate and an advocate for what he says is the under-represented political middle, believes Harris is too liberal to defeat Donald Trump. Maybe he is right, but his brief attempt to test the waters for himself, or possibly another moderate, failed.
Manchin’s best opportunities to capture the nation’s attention for a presidential run expired several months ago. The No Labels campaign had his name at the top of the list of possible candidates on a third-party ticket, but that effort failed to get traction and Manchin announced in February that he would not seek a third party run.
He also could have challenged Biden head-on in the Democratic Primaries, but he decided against that. Even if Manchin had run and lost, he would have gotten votes and plenty of media coverage. He would have been positioned to be more seriously considered now after Biden’s departure.
Then in May, Manchin announced he was leaving the Democratic Party and becoming an Independent. It would have been awkward for him to leave the party in May and then rejoin in July to run for President. That would have looked very opportunistic.
In politics, timing is everything. Manchin had a window with lots of national press coverage and fundraising ability a few months ago, but he took himself out of consideration for President. He found out pretty quickly between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning that reentering that discussion was not going to happen.