West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin announced Friday that he will not mount a 2024 campaign for president.
“I will not be seeking a third-party run. I will not be involved in a presidential run,” the retiring Democratic senator said in a speech at West Virginia University in Morgantown.
Manchin has been on a national listening tour as he weighed jumping in as a third-party presidential candidate, potentially on the No Labels ticket. He has criticized President Joe Biden for being too liberal but also said that he would refuse to be part of any effort that would help Donald Trump return to the White House.
Manchin had previously set a deadline of this spring to make a decision, but he is pulling the plug now to instead focus on a new group, Americans Together, which promotes moderate politics.
Manchin, a centrist, has found himself at odds with members of his party throughout his congressional tenure, which began in 2010 after he won a special election for a vacant Senate seat. While he helped Biden notch some key legislative wins in the first half of his presidency, Manchin has also been an outspoken critic of the president – especially on issues such as the environment, energy and the economy.
In his speech Friday, Manchin torched both parties, though Republicans in Washington and Trump got more of his ire. He ripped into the collapse of the bipartisan border deal last week amid a torrent of attacks on the legislation by top House Republicans and Trump, who has made the border a central campaign issue in his presidential bid.
“So many good friends of mine, so many people I thought were there to do the right thing, they cowered to former President Donald Trump’s request not to fix the border,” Manchin said. “As guilty as Joe Biden is for letting it happen, Donald…
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