Mad About Taxes, Maybe Running For President, Definitely On Brand

Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., is thinking about running for president — or at least people think he’s thinking about it. And Manchin clearly wants people to think that he’s thinking about it.

Last week, Manchin appeared at a town hall organized by No Labels, an independent political organization claiming to speak for the “commonsense majority.” The group has floated the possibility of mounting a 2024 presidential campaign, with Manchin a popular (if speculative) choice to lead the ticket.

The West Virginia senator has done little to quell the rumors. Asked directly, he refuses to rule anything out. But he insists that he won’t enter the race if he doesn’t think he can win it. “I’ve never been in any race I’ve ever spoiled. I’ve been in races to win,” Manchin said at the No Labels event. “And if I get in a race, I’m going to win.”

But is Manchin serious?

It seems possible, if only because he finds himself in some treacherous political waters. Manchin is up for reelection to the Senate this year, and his prospects aren’t great. That’s nothing new; as a Democrat in a very Republican state, he’s faced tough campaigns before. And he beat the odds in 2018, albeit in a relative squeaker compared with his 2012 landslide.

But there’s no guarantee that Manchin can repeat the feat in 2024, should he even choose to run again. The polls look grim, and Manchin says he won’t make a firm decision until late this year.

Improbable Solution

Oddly, Manchin’s best route back to the Senate might be through the White House. Or more precisely, through a White House campaign. Running for president, even briefly, might give him a crucial boost in his Senate race.

The key to Manchin’s survival in West Virginia politics has always been his reputation for independence — and iconoclasm. And what better way to demonstrate your independence than mounting a third-party challenge to the sitting president of your own party?

An independent, No Labels campaign would also fit with other key elements of Manchin’s careful brand-building. Most of the time, Manchin votes with his party.

According to Fivethirtyeight.com, he supported President Biden’s position nearly 90 percent of the time through the end of last year. But that record makes the exceptions even more important. Over the course of his political career, Manchin has engineered a series of high-profile policy disputes with fellow Democrats. These fights have made him deeply unpopular with party activists and frustrated many of his colleagues.

Most recently, Manchin has tangled with the Biden Treasury Department over the implementation of clean vehicle tax credits. In doing so, he has managed to transform a rather arcane dispute over domestic content requirements for critical minerals and battery components into a high-profile showdown with the White House. It may even become the launchpad for his presidential campaign.

You don’t have to question Manchin’s sincerity to recognize that he reaps political benefits from this sort of fight. And although he would reap even larger benefits from a presidential campaign — even if his only goal is to win reelection to the Senate — the details of that maneuver might get a little tricky.

Making a Maverick

Most of the time, Manchin is a reliable and important vote for Senate Democrats, especially around judicial confirmations. But he’s also been careful to put plenty of light between himself and the rest of his party over the years, focusing his well-publicized fights on a few key issues such as energy and fiscal policy.

For instance, Manchin was a notoriously hard sell on one of Biden’s most important legislative achievements, the Inflation Reduction Act (P.L. 117-169). He only agreed to support the measure after torpedoing more expensive alternatives. Even up to the last minute, Manchin almost pulled the plug, withholding his crucial support until Biden and other Democrats agreed to his terms.

For the most part, Manchin explained his skittishness by pointing to surging inflation. His objections were varied but included complaints about new spending on climate change programs, as well as several tax proposals targeting wealthy individuals and corporations.

Eventually, Manchin signed on to a compromise measure. Notably, the scaled-down legislation did not feature many of the progressive revenue reforms that Democrats had been pursuing for months or even years.

But for Manchin, disappointing fellow Democrats is really the point. His arguments about excessive spending may have been sincere; surging inflation over the past year certainly seems to have vindicated his worries. So, too, with his objections to progressive tax proposals: He may have meant exactly what he said.

But Manchin was clearly eager to extract a pound of flesh from his fellow Democrats — and to do it very publicly. After reaching agreement on the scaled-down package, with terms that he had more or less personally dictated, Manchin was crystal clear about his political agenda.

“For too long, the reconciliation debate in Washington has been defined by how it can help advance Democrats’ political agenda called Build Back Better,” Manchin said. “Build Back Better is dead, and instead we have the opportunity to make our country stronger by bringing Americans together.”

No statement by Manchin has ever been more on brand.

Another Fight

Manchin’s role in shaping the Inflation Reduction Act has had lasting ripple effects. In particular, the law’s clean vehicle tax credit has given him the source material for a new fight with his own party — a battle that has left him “very, very disappointed” with the Biden administration.

In mid-December 2022, Manchin wrote Treasury to warn against broad interpretations of the eligibility requirements for commercial vehicle tax credits.

“Instead of trying to find loopholes within these credits, domestic automakers should be seizing the opportunity to solidify our country’s role as the automotive superpower we can and should be,” he wrote. He clearly felt that Treasury should take care to close the loopholes before anyone could exploit them.

But within weeks Treasury approved exactly the sort of loose interpretation that Manchin opposed. Things then went from bad to worse.

In March Manchin released a statement on Treasury guidance for the electric vehicle credit and its implementation. He minced no words.

“It is horrific that the Administration continues to ignore the purpose of the law which is to bring manufacturing back to America and ensure we have reliable and secure supply chains,” he declared. “American tax dollars should not be used to support manufacturing jobs overseas. It is a pathetic excuse to spend more taxpayer dollars as quickly as possible and further cedes control to the Chinese Communist Party in the process.”

In a June 11 comment letter on that Treasury guidance, Manchin offered a range of specific complaints about the department’s proposed regulations. In general, he wrote, Treasury officials had ignored congressional intent and substituted their own preferences whenever it suited them. “My comment is simple,” Manchin wrote. “Follow the law.”

Public Battle

Manchin’s battle over the EV credits has been public and increasingly bitter. And it seems reasonable to take Manchin at his word when he claims to be disappointed in the way the Biden Treasury Department has handled the credits.

But the EV credit dispute is also part of Manchin’s broader effort to distance himself from Biden — or at least from the people who work for the president. As the 2024 election grows closer, Manchin has grown ever more strident in his criticism of the administration.

In a March 29 editorial in The Wall Street Journal, for instance, Manchin expanded on his complaint about the administration’s tendency to ignore congressional intent whenever it suited them. What the Biden administration was doing with the EV credits, he said, it was also doing more broadly.

“Despite explicit direction from Congress to pay down our debt in the Inflation Reduction Act, the administration seems more determined than ever to pervert that law and abuse existing authorities to increase spending,” he wrote. “Instead of implementing the law as intended, unelected ideologues, bureaucrats and appointees seem determined to violate and subvert the law to advance a partisan agenda that ignores both energy and fiscal security,” Manchin wrote.

It’s notable that Manchin blames everyone in the administration for these failures but tends to go easy on the president himself. Indeed, even in his most damning indictments, Manchin gives Biden some wiggle room.

“I believe the only person who can rein in this extremism is Mr. Biden,” Manchin wrote in his op-ed. In an interview with CNN, he voiced even more confidence in Biden’s ability to course correct. The president, Manchin said, has “been pushed too far left” but also “has the strength to fight back.”

It’s hard to say why Manchin dons kid gloves when talking about Biden personally. What’s easy to say, however, is that Manchin clearly wants to distance himself from the Democratic establishment more generally.

And who can blame him? Democrats are not very popular in West Virginia.

Feeling Blue in a Red State

Once a Democratic stronghold, West Virginia has been trending Republican for almost a quarter century. GOP presidential candidates have won the state in every election since 2000; Donald Trump won in a walk in 2016 (by a 42 percent margin) and in 2020 (by 39 percent).

At the subnational level, Democrats have fared better, but the trend has been reliably grim for them. In 2000 Republicans captured their first West Virginia House seat, in 2010 a second, and in 2014 a third; thanks to census redistricting, the state now has just two members in the House, both of them Republican.

In the Senate, Shelley Moore Capito captured one of the state’s two seats for the Republicans when she won the seat vacated by five-term Democrat Jay Rockefeller’s retirement. She joined Manchin, who had won his seat in a special election to fill the seat left vacant when Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd died in office.

Democrats kept winning gubernatorial elections in West Virginia, even when they were losing most other races. From 2000 to 2016, the governor’s office stayed reliably blue. But that changed in 2020. Jim Justice, having won his 2016 race for governor as a Democrat, switched parties early in his term. In 2020 he coasted to easy reelection as a Republican — and began preparing for his 2024 Senate challenge to Manchin.

Things are looking pretty good for Justice. In a recent poll from the East Carolina University Center for Survey Research, he was leading Manchin by 22 points.

Amping Up the Independence

Manchin has managed to defy the odds in past years, winning reelection despite the hostile political environment. West Virginians seem to like him. And it seems likely that his well-advertised independence has probably helped his cause.

But the task gets harder every year for iconoclasts and independents. U.S. elections have become increasingly nationalized, with most voters inclined to focus on party over candidate. That’s the conventional wisdom, at least. And there are plenty of moderate, defeated Democrats from red states who would endorse that view. Independence doesn’t buy you much protection in today’s electoral environment.

Still, if iconoclasm is going to work again for anyone, it might still work for Manchin. But he’s going to need to double down on his independence, which is why he might choose to run for president, even if he just wants to be a senator.

“Manchin has to run in a state that is overwhelmingly Republican,” pointed out Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi in comments to Vox. “It forces him to engage in a lot of this performative stuff that is about highlighting how he’s independent and how he’s not susceptible to the Democratic Party — how he’s his own man.”

Amandi thinks Manchin might stage a brief presidential campaign as a No Labels candidate and then, when victory looks suitably improbable, drop out and run hard for his old Senate seat. The No Labels feint would bolster his independent credentials in the most convincing way possible.

Democrats worry that Manchin might not drop out, staying in the race long enough to do real damage to Biden’s prospects. With no chance to win, he could still drain enough votes from Biden to tip the election to Donald Trump, assuming that current polls are right and 2024 ends up being a rematch between the 2020 candidates.

But again, Manchin has insisted that he won’t be a spoiler. And his odd solicitude for Biden — his tendency to spare him the worst of his anti-Democratic vitriol — suggests that Manchin may not be quite the threat that some Democrats think.

The Right Enemies

Fellow Democrats are often angry with Manchin. Activists, journalists, and even some lawmakers have questioned not just his politics but his character. Some have accused him of outright corruption, suggesting that his dogged defense of the coal industry has been driven by the prospect of personal gain. As Rolling Stone declared in one characteristic headline: “Manchin’s Coal Corruption Is So Much Worse Than You Knew.”

Manchin seems unruffled by such attacks; indeed, he almost seems to relish them. His equanimity recalls President Franklin Roosevelt, who also didn’t mind being vilified. “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” FDR said of his opponents in 1936. “They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

There is political utility in being hated: Having the right enemies can be more important than having the right friends. That’s something Roosevelt understood almost intuitively.

Joe Manchin seems to understand it too.