WV-SEN 2024: Manchin out, Justice for All

[President Johnson]

Unless he switches parties, he's not winning.

He’s literally made WV believe he’s a Republican even as he voted to confirm a liberal Supreme Court Justice. If those numbers are even close to accurate, he doesn’t "need" to switch parties to win reelection.

He's not actively running for reelection right now. Once the campaign has truly begun, the GOP will attack him as a communist pedophile, and his numbers with Republicans will go way down. Right now, he's useful to them for blocking Biden's "agenda", but they'd still rather have someone who wouldn't have confirmed KBJ.

Does anybody in West Virginia even care about KBJ's confirmation vote? I doubt it. Let alone we're talking about an election not taking place for another 2.5 years.

I'm still not convinced Manchin can win, given how close 2018 was against a weak Republican, but you never know.

[President Johnson]

"Joe Manchin does better in presidential years than in midterm years" is a bad argument given that the number of presidential years in which Joe Manchin has run for Senate is exactly... one, and that was against an unserious opponent in a race Republicans didn’t even contest. The composition of a presidential-year electorate will definitely be more disadvantageous to Manchin than that of a midterm electorate.

Yeah, the argument is nonsense. Bill Nelson also did better in 2006 than 2000 and 2012 before he went down in 2018. The state and polarization have just changed too much and the timespans we're talking about there are not just one, but multiple lifetimes in politics.

[President Johnson]

He is 10000% running

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1637866739881893908

And 10000% embarrassing himself by getting blown out no matter how much he pivots to the right.

[President Johnson]

I will not stop laughing if Manchin somehow underperforms Biden because a lack of D enthusiasm. It would be a fitting end and apt punishment for him blocking so much.

He’s been DOA since his November 7, 2018. You’d think he would’ve been smart enough to sense that this was his last term no matter what and start voting like he represented San Francisco.

This has been obvious to every American other than Joe Manchin, one wonders if he is just dumb or delusional or both.

The guy just seems completely out of time. He still think it's the ol' days were senate races were far more about the person running rather than partisanship. He also acts like the senate was the place from 30-40 years ago and that Republicans besides Romney and Murk are willing to get much done if you just give them enough. He's a politician with a 1970s mind. It can't be his age since Biden and Schumer learned their lessons from recent years.

However, I expect Manchin to do better than Biden, although it's a low bar. As of today, I'd say he loses something like 59-39%.

[President Johnson]

Now that Justice is formally in, I'd really be shocked to see Manchin even trying. According to Wikipedia, he plans announce his decision in December, so there's plenty of time. However, I can't imagine one being so delusional to believe this is remotely winnable.

[President Johnson]

What's so annoying about this is not that this makes the seat more Safe Republican (it always was), but that Manchin's shtick was basically for nothing. He didn't need to be like Fetterman, he could just have voted like Tester or Kelly and not derail parts of Biden's agenda.

However, as much as I'd like to see a generally more liberal Democratic caucus, his replacement (almost certainly Justice) will definitely be a massive downgrade.