Dhe influential US Senator Joe Manchin from the Democratic Party will not run for re-election next year. “I made one of the hardest decisions of my life,” said the 76-year-old centrist politician and internal party opponent of President Joe Biden in an online video on Thursday. “I have decided that I will not seek re-election to the U.S. Senate.”
Instead, he wanted to travel the country and see “whether there is interest in starting a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together,” the senator from the conservative state of West Virginia continued.
The former governor of West Virginia has served in the Senate since 2010. In the Congress Chamber, the politician with close ties to the coal industry has repeatedly made life difficult for President Biden in recent years: Given the Democrats’ wafer-thin majority in the Senate, he was able to virtually single-handedly block Biden’s legislative proposals, including a planned billion-dollar climate protection and social package . In doing so, Manchin made many enemies among the Democrats and especially in the left wing of the party.
Manchin’s seat is otherwise firmly in Republican hands
Biden’s climate protection package was finally passed in a significantly scaled-down form after long negotiations with Manchin last year. The so-called Inflation Reduction Act provides around $370 billion (around €346 billion) for energy security and climate protection, making it the largest investment in the fight against global warming in US history.
Manchin has many opponents in his own party. At the same time, it is unlikely that the Democrats will be able to defend the Senate seat of the politician with deep roots in West Virginia with another candidate in the congressional and presidential elections in a year’s time.
If the opposition Republicans win the Senate seat – one of the two for West Virginia – in November 2024, that would bring them closer to a majority in the congressional chamber. The Democrats and their independent allies currently have 51 senators and the Republicans have 49 senators.
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