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Democrat Senator Joe Manchin Endorses Republican In Primary

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Democrat West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has been a major thorn in the side of both President Joe Biden and the Democrat Party and now he has gone even further.

The West Virginia senator endorsed Republican Rep. David McKinley against House Rep. Alex Mooney who was backed by former President Donald Trump, The Daily Mail reported.

He also takes aim at President Joe Biden’s failed $1.75 trillion Build Back Better plan, which Manchin himself killed when announcing his opposition to it late last year

Mooney and McKinley are fighting for the GOP nomination to represent West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District after the state lost a seat to redistricting after the 2020 census. 

It’s rare for sitting lawmakers to wade into a race pitting two incumbents against one another in a primary, much less so for the opposing party.

Manchin is the only Democrat currently representing deep red West Virginia in Congress. Trump won the state by roughly 40 points in the 2020 presidential election.

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“I’ve always said if I can’t go home to explain it, I can’t vote for it. And that’s why I opposed Build Back Better,’ the senator said in the TV spot,” the senator said.

“For Alex Mooney and his out-of-state supporters to suggest David McKinley supported Build Back Better is an outright lie,” he said.

“David McKinley has always opposed reckless spending, because it doesn’t make sense for West Virginia.

“Alex Mooney has proven he’s all about Alex Mooney. West Virginians know David McKinley is all about us,” he said.

But Mooney used the endorsement to label his opponent as a RINO (Republican In Name Only.).

“Further proof David McKinley is a complete and total RINO. Democrat Joe Manchin is endorsing him,” he said.

But McKinley’s campaign praised the endorsement.

“Joe Manchin knows that I’ve always fought wasteful spending and opposed liberal policies that don’t work for West Virginians,” he said.

But going against the Democrat grain has worked well for the West Virginia senator so far.

As his party has moved further left in recent years, Manchin has refused to follow, choosing to follow a centrist course instead that is frustrating Democrats as they seek to take full advantage of their congressional majority with President Joe Biden in the White House — and as one survey after another suggests the party is going to suffer badly at the polls in November.

But it’s a political course that is a winner back home, as Newsmax reports:

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A Morning Consult poll reveals Senator Manchin posted a job-satisfaction rate of 57% for the first quarter of 2022 — a 17% increase from last year’s survey covering the same timeline.

Manchin’s strong approval rating might baffle some in the national media, particularly those who view Manchin as an obstructionist member of the Democrat Party.

As such, during media sessions, the longtime senator (since 2010) routinely gets asked if he’d ponder switching parties to “Independent” or even “Republican” status.

Since Biden took office, Manchin — and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Arizona Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — has regularly opposed large segments of Biden’s social, green, and economic priorities, which has stalled the president’s and Democrats’ agenda.

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While critics accuse him of aligning more frequently with the Republican Party, in fact, Manchin has a steady record of being a political moderate.

Morning Consult noted further that Manchin’s 17 percent cumulative increase is the highest approval increase of any U.S. senator since Biden came into office in January 2021.

The second-highest gaining senator is John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, with an 11 percent increase, according to the survey.

“Manchin’s double-digit approval rating improvement over the course of Biden’s tenure is a rarity when compared with other incumbents: Just three of them — John Thune (R-S.D.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) — have seen comparable improvement in their standing,” the Morning Consult’s Eli Yokley said.

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