Senator Joe Manchin III, the conservative West Virginia Democrat, on Friday announced that he would not seek the White House in 2024, ending months of speculation that he might challenge President Biden as an independent candidate.
“I will not be seeking a third-party run,” he said in a speech in Morgantown, W.Va. “I will not be involved in a presidential run.”
Since Mr. Manchin, 76, announced in November that he would not run for re-election, he had been the subject of months of public and private guesswork about whether he would seek the presidency. In particular, he had flirted with becoming the candidate for No Labels, a centrist group aiming to recruit a third option in what is shaping up to look like a general-election race between Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.
But on Friday, he pledged, “I will not be a deal breaker or a spoiler.”
Mr. Manchin’s decision takes off the table the highest-profile candidate that the leaders of No Labels had sought to attract. The group had told donors and allies in recent months that they planned to name a Republican to lead their ticket, ostensibly taking Mr. Manchin out of contention, but they have so far not found any takers.
Former Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a moderate Republican, quit the No Labels board in January. After endorsing former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina for president, he announced his own campaign for Senate in Maryland last week.
With the most obvious No Labels ticket out of play, the group vowed on Friday to continue its efforts to secure ballot slots in all 50 states. The group’s co-chairmen — former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the civil rights leader Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. and former Gov. Pat McCrory, Republican of North Carolina — said the group “will announce in the coming weeks whether we will offer our line to a Unity ticket.”
But the group’s options have slimmed considerably, it has secured ballot access in only 14 states, and whoever might accept the No Labels offer would have to deal with an onslaught of litigation from Democrats determined to squelch the effort.
“Quite frankly, they ought to just pull the plug on their presidential effort,” said Doug Jones, a former Democratic senator from Alabama who has been trying to head off a No Labels ticket.
Since Mr. Manchin said he would not run again, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, has been pleading with him to formally leave the Democratic Party and run again for Senate as an independent, according to two people familiar with their conversations.
West Virginia’s deadline to file to run in a Senate primary race was in January, but independent candidates have until Aug. 1 to declare their candidacy.
Without Mr. Manchin, Democrats have written off the possibility of holding the Senate seat in deep-red West Virginia. They have an uphill battle to try to keep control of the chamber, with several incumbents defending seats in states won by Mr. Trump.
Mr. Manchin has been known in the Senate for bipartisan deal-making and also for frustrating some of his party’s most ambitious policy goals.
During his speech on Friday at West Virginia University, Mr. Manchin denounced the state of Congress, which he described as the most dysfunctional body he had worked with.
“This will be the least productive, most destructive Congress that we have ever had in the history of the United States,” he said.
The No Labels push has foundered for months now. Potential donors, especially Republicans, have closed their wallets, waiting to see if Ms. Haley could gain traction against Mr. Trump. As long as she remains in the Republican primary contest, the push for ballot access has been slow, and without ballot access, recruiting candidates has been difficult.
A public convention planned for Dallas in April to name a ticket has been scotched in favor of a secret committee. No Labels leaders have let it be known they would love to recruit either Ms. Haley or Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who ran an unsuccessful primary bid against Mr. Trump.
But Mr. Christie has said he would do nothing that could help send Mr. Trump back to the White House, and No Labels opponents are confident Ms. Haley would not want to harm her future with the Republican Party.
Both candidates would face lawsuits over “sore loser laws” in several states that prohibit failed candidates from jumping from one party to another.
That could leave the group with no high-profile options, said Matt Bennett, a senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group that has spearheaded efforts to neutralize the No Labels push.
“It’s vitally important to emphasize that Joe Manchin and Larry Hogan, as co-chairs of No Labels, had as much insight into what No Labels had to offer as anyone on planet earth, and they took a pass,” Mr. Bennett said. “Anyone else is going to look at that and think, ‘What did they know that we don’t know?’”
Carl Hulse contributed reporting.
By
By
By
