by Sen. Joe Manchin III, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia, announced Friday that he would not seek the White House in 2024, ending months of speculation that he could challenge President Biden as an independent candidate.
“I will not seek a third-party candidacy,” he said in a speech in Morgantown, West Virginia. “I will not participate in a presidential candidacy.”
Since Manchin, 76, announced in November that he would not run for re-election, he had been the subject of months of public and private speculation about whether he would seek the presidency. In particular, he had flirted with becoming a candidate for No Labels, a centrist group that aims to recruit a third choice in what is shaping up to be a general election race between Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.
But on Friday he vowed: “I will not be a deal-breaker or a saboteur.”
Manchin’s decision takes the highest-profile candidate No Labels leaders had tried to attract off the table. The group had told donors and allies in recent months that they planned to name a Republican to lead their ticket, apparently removing Manchin from the race, but so far they have not found anyone to take him on.
Former Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a moderate Republican, resigned from the No Labels board in January. After endorsing former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina for president, he announced his own Senate campaign in Maryland last week.
With the most obvious No Labels ticket out of the picture, the group vowed Friday to continue its efforts to secure ballot spots in all 50 states. The group’s co-chairs — former Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, civil rights leader Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. and former Gov. Pat McCrory, R-North Carolina — said the group “will announce in the coming weeks whether offer our line to a Unity ticket.”
But the group’s options have narrowed considerably — it has secured access to the polls in just 14 states — and whoever accepts No Labels’ offer would have to contend with an avalanche of litigation from Democrats determined to crush the effort.
“Frankly, they should just end their presidential effort,” said Doug Jones, a former Democratic senator from Alabama who has been trying to avoid a no-label candidacy.
Since Manchin said he would not run again, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, has been pleading with him to formally leave the Democratic Party and run again for the Senate as an independent, according to two people familiar with his actions. conversations. .
West Virginia’s deadline to file for the Senate primary was in January, but Independent candidates have until August 1. to declare his candidacy.
Without Manchin, Democrats have ruled out taking the deep-red West Virginia Senate seat. They have an uphill battle trying to maintain control of the chamber, with several incumbents defending seats in states won by Trump.
Manchin has been known in the Senate for his bipartisan deals and also for thwarting some of his party’s most ambitious policy goals.
During his speech Friday at West Virginia University, Manchin denounced the state of Congress, which he described as the most dysfunctional body he had ever worked with.
“This will be the least productive and most destructive Congress we have ever had in American history,” he said.
The No Labels push has failed for months. Potential donors, especially Republicans, have closed their wallets, waiting to see if Haley could gain ground against Trump. As long as she remains in the Republican primary, the push for ballot access has been slow, and without ballot access, recruiting candidates has been difficult.
A public convention scheduled for April in Dallas to choose a candidate was scrapped in favor of a secret committee. No Labels leaders have made it known that they would love to recruit Haley or Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who ran an unsuccessful primary bid against Trump.
But Christie has said she wouldn’t do anything that would help send Trump back to the White House, and No Labels’ opponents are confident Haley wouldn’t want to damage her future with the Republican Party.
Both candidates would face lawsuits over “sore losers laws” in several states that prohibit unsuccessful candidates from jumping from one party to another.
That could leave the group without high-profile options, said Matt Bennett, senior vice president of Third Way, a centrist Democratic group that has led efforts to neutralize the No Labels push.
“It is vitally important to emphasize that Joe Manchin and Larry Hogan, as co-presidents of No Labels, had as much knowledge of what No Labels had to offer as anyone else on planet Earth, and they ignored it,” Bennett said. “Anyone else will look at that and think, ‘What did they know that we don’t know?’”
Carl Hulse contributed with reports.
