A Manchin POTUS Run Might Actually Hurt Trump, Incredibly

This is an interesting perspective. Michael Tomasky, who is a West Virginian, spells out how Joe Manchin had no choice but to resign. When a political career is over, it’s over. And Manchin’s race is definitely done. He could not win against Jim Justice. That’s a foregone conclusion, which Tomasky explains in the first part of his piece.

It’s the second part of his piece which is intriguing because it speaks to the issue of what, if anything, will Manchin do now? You recall Manchin’s resignation speech and his ambiguous comment about “helping.” Does that translate as a No Labels run? Maybe it does. And the good news about that, is maybe that’s a great idea. Want to know why? Because he’s not going to bleed votes away from Biden, but he may well end up doing an RFK, Jr. number and bleeding them away from Trump.

And to the extent that he is popular, he is more popular among Republicans than Democrats. In a recent PRRI poll, Manchin was viewed favorably by 12 percent, while 41 percent viewed him unfavorably. This man who gets so much positive Beltway press was viewed very favorably by 1 percent. This by the way was Americans, not West Virginians. And there’s a recent Morning Consult poll that ranked the popularity of every senator (these were statewide polls). It found Manchin to be one of the most unpopular senators in the country. Now that’s largely because he’s a Democrat in a Republican state. There are only seven senators who are underwater in the poll, and Manchin is one of them (the only senators deeper underwater are Susan Collins, Ron Johnson, and Mitch McConnell, who is down there in Mariana Trench territory).

But here’s the good news for Manchin, according to Morning Consult. Manchin’s 42–48 numbers are actually an improvement over the last time they polled this. And that improvement has been “driven largely by Republican voters.” That echoes the PRRI poll, which breaks down that 12 percent favorable rating by party. Manchin is lowest among Democrats (7 percent), with independents in the middle (13 percent), and Republicans viewing him most favorably (18 percent).

So a surge of disaffected Democrats is going to back this guy? I don’t buy it. In fact, if we agree that somewhere around 55 percent of Republicans are MAGA and 45 percent are not, which seems about fair based on polls, that tells me that there are, at least potentially, more—far more—disaffected Republicans who might pull for Manchin. If he runs, I suspect his polls will tell him this, and he’ll go hunting where the ducks are, as Barry Goldwater put it.

And he might even do as well as Barry Goldwater did when he ran for president, or at least that is devoutly to be wished. This is hilarious when you get down to it and start to think about it. Make no mistake, I fear No Labels because it’s a truism of politics that a third-party candidate traditionally bleeds off votes from the Democrats — BUT — and this is a yuge but — that was in a pre-Trump era. Donald Trump sent all the political gyroscopes a spinning and in this day and age everything is so cockeyed it’s amazing that gravity still works.

RFK, Jr. is providing an “alternative” for the crazies who don’t want to vote for Trump but also don’t want to vote for the Democratic incumbent. And that spells bad news for Trump. Joe Manchin, should he run, very likely will provide yet another way to bleed votes away from Trump.

This election has been billed, and rightfully so, as Americans v. Trump. It is entirely possible that Americans will vote for Biden and those people who are dissatisfied with anything remotely normal, democracy, for example, will decide that they need to vote for either Trump or a Trump alternative.

We could see a situation on the 2024 ballot that we have never seen, which is the Republican vote split about four different ways. We could see some write-in activity, let’s say people writing in Nikki Haley, we could see the Trump vote, obviously, and then we could see an RFK, Jr. vote and a Joe Manchin vote. If there is a situation of Joe Biden and a four-way split, that could be most excellent for Biden.

I’m still extremely skeptical about No Labels and third parties in general. No Labels, in particular, is dark money and devoted to electing Trump — and doing it by bleeding off Biden votes. But here’s the gag: I don’t think Joe Manchin can bleed off any Biden votes. I think that Democrats or those who lean towards voting Democratic, are not going to vote for Manchin. Anybody informed knows Manchin for who and what he is. And those who are not informed are not going to vote for Manchin from some visceral level, because he represents something new and exciting. He emphatically does not. So who does that leave? Right. Republicans or nobody.

Manchin may have the same constituency among Democrats that Mike Pence had amongst Republicans — which is zip. Zero. Nada. And Manchin may do about as well as Pence did.

I hope Manchin has enough sense not to run. I think he should just go sit out on his boat and enjoy the good life. But if he does run, it may not be the run that he once believed it could be.

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