Manchin considering Democratic run for president after Biden withdrawal

Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) is considering reregistering as a Democrat and running for the party’s presidential nomination after President Joe Biden announced he would end his reelection campaign on Sunday.

Manchin had previously weighed a third party presidential run, but is now considering a run for the Democratic nomination, a source familiar with Manchin’s thinking confirmed to the Washington Examiner.

The West Virginia senator, who registered as an independent earlier this year after previously being a registered Democrat, called on Biden to “pass the torch to the new generation” on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday prior to Biden’s announcement that he would drop his campaign.

When asked on State of the Union about how Biden would “pass the torch,” Manchin said on the network it should be an “open process.”

“I think that we have a lot of talent on the bench, a lot of good people, and I’m partial to governors because a governor can’t afford to be partial. They can’t afford to be partisan strictly, because that pothole or that bridge doesn’t have a D or an R on it,” Manchin said on CNN.

“I have got two tremendous governors right next door to me in Andy Beshear in Kentucky and Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, who are operating with legislatures evenly split or completely opposite of their party affiliation,” he added. “They haven’t divided their state. They haven’t made you pick a side and demonize the other side. They have brought people together. This is what an open process would do, I think. It would bring more people out in a process that could bring Democrats like me back.”

Manchin, a Senate centrist, declined not to run for reelection to his seat in November but has not publicly ruled out running for public office in the future.

Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee for president. Harris has the backing of several key Democrats, including Biden, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), and both Bill and Hillary Clinton, but several other Democrats have not endorsed her – including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and former President Barack Obama.

Biden is the first incumbent to not seek a second term since then-President Lyndon Baines Johnson did so in 1968. After Johnson decided against running for a second term, his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, was the Democratic nominee but lost to former Vice President Richard Nixon.

The uncertainty within the Democratic Party’s ticket comes less than a month before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The convention is scheduled for Aug. 19-22.

Marisa Schultz contributed to this report.