Manchin’s Moment for a No Labels Relabel

A lot is up in the air for the non-party party, but having the outgoing senator raising cash and stumping for attention makes sense.

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Sen. Joe Manchin co-headlines the “Common Sense” town hall, an event sponsored by the bipartisan group No Labels on Monday evening, July 17, 2023 at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Photo by John Tully/Washington Post/Getty Images)

Sen. Joe Manchin’s newly announced retirement has made life a lot simpler for both parties’ 2024 Senate map.

He was always unlikely to win reelection as a Democrat in West Virginia where. Especially if Donald Trump is again the Republican presidential nominee, Manchin’s party will lose at the top of the ticket by 40 points or more. 

Manchin narrowly defied the odds in 2018, the best Democratic midterm year in generations, against a weak Republican challenger. But with the state’s popular Republican governor cruising to his party’s Senate nomination, Manchin’s chances were basically nil.

With him out of the race, Democrats will have no obligation to expend resources or annoy progressives—who hate Manchin with the heat of 10,000 coal-fired power plants—to make a show of trying to protect the seat.   

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  1. AJLiberty

    Manchin lacks the personality magnetism to attract the independents to start drawing Perot-like numbers. Granted Bush Sr and Clinton didn't have the negatives that Trump/Biden do, but we also weren't as polarized in 1992 as we are today. I suspect that most people will stay with their tribe unless someone emerges that is electric.

    That seems unlikely. Larry Hogan was a popular east coast governor, but it's hard to characterize him as electric. Don't get me wrong...I would likely vote for him and I think he would be seen as being mentally quicker than Biden and not a sociopath like Trump. But the Right doesn't want to leave crazy because they are invested. Biden might be softer with his edge support so at this moment a Hogan/Manchin ticket probably helps Trump.

    I do want someone to vote for, but right now it looks like priority one has to be Trump losing....and I will gladly leave that top line blank for that.

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  2. Craig Berry

    I'm normally a pro-life guy first and then everything else flows from that, which normally would make me flinch at voting for Manchin. However, I can't vote for Trump and I won't vote for President Biden so color me persuadable. I could totally rationalize it with, "I can advance the pro-life cause better with a moderate guy who's a bit on the other side than I could with a guy who claims to be pro-life but plans on throwing the Constitution in the garbage and would toss us over the side the second we're not useful to him."

    The political problem with Manchin and whoever as his veep is that they have to take positions on things. Saying "I'm in between The Coot and The Crook" is nice, but eventually people will start getting mad at you when you have to stake out positions. Also, Manchin is sure to make both sides really angry and there's going to be a lot of Super PAC's throwing mud at him from one side or the other, depending on the week.

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    Dsypul

    David French at the top of the No Labels ticket?

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  4. Mirabelle

    "The organization insists that it won’t run a candidate without “the proper environmental conditions,” "

    No Labels is a vanity project for people who have convinced themselves that they are better and smarter than everyone else. *They* are the ones who know what's what and what American voters want -- according to themselves. Everyone else else rolls their eyes and watches No Labels egos swell.

    Which means that the proper environmental conditions will be if those in No Labels need more attention or not.

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    Mister D

    No Labels is a nice idea with no way to win without betraying itself. At some point, No Labels has to nominate SOMEONE or remain irrelevant, but the moment there's a nominee, No Labels will, for all intents, be labeled. It will either be the Manchin party, the Sinema party, the Romney party, whatever, and be forced to carry all the baggage that goes with it. And the bottom of the ticket won't have nearly the impact as the top - if its a former (D) or (R), that's how it will be perceived. Put Manchin on the ticket, and my fellow conservatives are likely to balk at voting for him. Put Romney or Liz Cheney and there go the disaffected D's. There best chance to succeed is a Perot-like (now with half the crazy!) figure with more charisma than record and little attachment to the major parties or hot button issues (abortion, gun control, pineapple on pizza). Remember the country and world were in much better shape in 1992 when Perot won 19% of the popular vote, and that was after he put his nuttiness on display. Had he not dropped out of the race, had he not gone full MiB with his daughter's wedding, he could have done much better, and that was a race in which Clinton won with only 43% of the vote.

    As I understand it, should no candidate win 270 electoral votes the race is tossed into Congress (the next Congress after the election) but they are obligated to vote for someone who has won electoral votes. No surprise twist President Oprah. But if a NP candidate can win just one state, that opens the door to being chosen by Congress.

    Could this happen? Technically. Will it? Hard to see it. Let's be honest, we're all the condemned man in An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge fantasizing a way out of our sentence, and we're all just as doomed.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Fighting Armadillo

      Not “Congress” as such, but the House of Representatives, specially constituted so that each state delegation gets a single vote. Given the Republican Party’s lock on small, rural states, a scenario where no candidate wins 270 electoral votes means that Trump becomes President.

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  6. MathewA

    I refuse to vote for Trump, he tried to steal an election.

    I also refuse to vote for Biden. His disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan made Ukraine much more likely, and probably 10/7 as well. Not to mention his bad economic policies, and worse woke policies.


    I certainly don't agree with Manchin on everything, but I would probably be willing to give him my protest vote.

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    1. David R

      I'd certainly do it in California; if I move to somewhere actually competitive before next November (which is pretty likely), somehow we don't avoid Trump vs Biden major party contest, and the No Labels candidate doesn't break out enough that it's not a pure protest vote, it's going to really suck.

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      1. MathewA

        Yep I'm in Oregon so similar situation

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    Manleys

    The best thing about a Manchin race is that at the age of 76, he would bring youth and vigor to the general election campaign trail.

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    1. Philebus

      I'm not 76 yet, but at my age (65), I may have many great ideas, but may not have the vigor to see it through (I do have good ideas, and if we were sitting next to each other on barstool(s), we could work it out). At some point, one must say: I have no tolerance for your nonsense. I'm fine with Joe Biden or Kamala Harris (as bad as it is). Trump is worse.

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    George.Skinner

    The No Labels people don't seem to have any raison d'être other than a general dissatisfaction with the likely candidates of the major parties. Most probably they'd expend a tremendous amount of effort to become a rounding error in the national race, although there's a slim chance they could tilt the outcome of the election in a few tight races via the electoral college. If pressed, there's probably no real policy consensus among the organizers.

    Finally, what's the point in nominating Manchin? This is a politician who had no real national footprint until he became 1 of 2 senators perceived to be blocking enormously expensive progressive initiatives in 2021. Even in the spotlight, Machin didn't come out with new proposals or suggest an alternative direction. His position was basically "no, I don't really like this. We should try something different." In some sense, I guess that *does* align him pretty well with the ethos of No Labels.

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    Addicus

    There is no possible way for No-Labels to outright win 270 electoral votes. If they keep Biden and Trump from winning 270 then the election moves to congress where each state get's one vote. There are more Red states than Blue states - Trump wins. And No-Labels will forever be remembered as the fools who gave us Trump 2.0. Could you imagine the outrage in this country if Trump is elected this way!

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    1. Compost King

      The object would be to take votes from Trump, throwing the election to Biden. I won't vote for Trump, but I can't see myself voting for Grampa Joe, either. But I'd happily register a protest vote for the No Labels ticket if it features a Larry Hogan or a Joe Manchin, or even Elmer Fudd.

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        C C Writer

        Make Fudd's running mate Wile E. Coyote, and I'm in!

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  10. BEE

    I am patiently waiting for the No Labels platform / candidates to be announced. I am intrigued by the *possible* candidates, but it will be hard to overcome the "you're throwing away your vote" / Duverger's law principle. I look forward to a slightly more interesting election cycle, no matter what happens with No Labels or otherwise.

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    1. Jgwadman

      My opinion ... voting for Trump or Biden is throwing away your vote. Neither will do anything I want to experience. Trump will turn the government into a "get even" machine and Biden will regulate us into stagnation and central planning. Unfortunately, the majority of the country has lost its collective mind, if it was otherwise we would see at least one of the national parties offer more that a incompetent boob as a candidate.

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      Raiderduck

      Remember: We've been using this system of elections for over 200 years. Not ONCE in all that time has a single private citizen's vote come anywhere near to deciding a Presidential election (the closest was Florida in 2000 and even that was hundreds of votes, not one).

      Vote for whichever POTUS candidate you want. Whoever was going to win will still win, and whoever was going to lose will still lose.

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      1. Bourgman

        Thank you! I always vote my conscience and encourage others to do the same. I had people telling me voting third party was handing Hillary the White House. Others told me I was handing Trump the White House. Well I had no idea so much power rested on little old me!

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          C C Writer

          And did you know that if you vote for neither one, you're actually voting for both? /sarc

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