Sen. Joe Manchin III, the conservative West Virginia Democrat, announced Friday that he will not seek the White House in 2024, ending months of speculation that he might challenge President Biden as an independent candidate.
“I will not seek a third-party nomination,” he said in a speech in Morgantown, W.Va. “I will not get involved in a presidential candidacy.”
Since Mr. Manchin, 76, announced in November that he would not seek 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 running for No Labels, a centrist group aiming to recruit a third option in what is shaping up to be a general election race between Mr Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.
But on Friday, he vowed: “I’m not going to be a deal breaker or a spoiler.”
Mr. Manchin’s decision takes off the table the highest-profile candidate No Labels leaders had tried to attract. The group had told donors and allies in recent months that they planned to name a Republican to lead their ticket, seemingly taking Mr. Manchin out of contention, but so far they have found no supporters.
Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, 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 more obvious No Labels ticket out of the running, the group vowed Friday to continue its efforts to secure ballots 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 you will offer our line on a Unity ticket.”
But the group’s options have narrowed significantly, securing ballot access in only 14 states, and anyone who accepts No Labels’ offer will face an onslaught of lawsuits from Democrats determined to squelch the effort.
“Frankly, they should just pull the plug on their presidential bid,” said Doug Jones, a former Democratic senator from Alabama who is trying to carve out a No Labels ticket.
Since Mr. Manchin said he would not run again, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, has pleaded with him to formally leave the Democratic Party and run for the Senate again as an independent, according to two people familiar with the matter. they know their conversations. .
West Virginia’s deadline to file in a Senate primary race was January, but independent candidates have until Aug. 1 to file.
Without Mr. Manchin, Democrats have written off the possibility of holding the Senate seat in deep-red West Virginia. They have an uphill battle to try to retain control of the chamber, with several incumbents defending seats in states won by Mr. Trump.
Mr. Manchin was known in the Senate for bipartisan deals and also for frustrating some of his party’s most ambitious policy goals.
During his speech on Friday at West Virginia University, Mr. Manchin decried the state of Congress, which he described as the most dysfunctional body he had ever worked with.
“This is going to be the least productive, most destructive Congress we’ve ever had in the history of the United States,” he said.
The No Labels push has been building for months. Potential donors, especially Republicans, have closed their wallets, waiting to see if Ms. Haley could gain traction against Mr. Trump. While it remains in the Republican primary race, the push for access to the ballot has been slow, and without access to the ballot, candidate recruitment has been difficult.
A public convention planned for Dallas in April to name a ticket was scrapped in favor of a secret committee. No Label leaders have indicated they would like to recruit either Ms. Haley or Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who had an unsuccessful primary bid against Mr. Trump.
But Mr Christie said he would do nothing that could help send Mr Trump back to the White House, and opponents of No Labels are confident Ms Haley would not want to damage her future with the Republican Party. .
Both candidates would face lawsuits over “loser laws” in several states that prohibit unsuccessful candidates from switching parties.
That could leave the group without high-profile options, said Matt Bennett, a senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group that has led efforts to counter the No Labels push.
“It’s vital to emphasize that Joe Manchin and Larry Hogan, as co-chairmen of No Labels, had as much insight into what No Labels had to offer as anyone on planet earth, and they got a pass,” Mr Bennett said. . “Anyone else will see it and think, ‘What did they know that we don’t?’
Carl Hulse contributed to the report.
