White House tried, and failed, to persuade Manchin to make another Senate run [View all]

[JoeOtterbein]

And now, the question is, will he run against Biden?

Politico

By HOLLY OTTERBEIN and JONATHAN LEMIRE

11/10/2023 06:34 PM EST

As Sen. Joe Manchin struggled for several months over the next step he would take politically, President Joe Biden’s top advisers privately tried to persuade him to run for another term in the Senate.

Multiple West Wing aides, including senior counselor Steve Ricchetti, and some outside Biden allies talked with the West Virginia Democrat, according to two White House officials and another adviser who were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the conversations. Their pitch to Manchin was that, while a reelection bid in a deep-red state would be difficult, he had a path to victory.

They failed to convince him to run.

On Thursday, the senator didn’t just announce that he would not campaign for a third term but also openly toyed with the idea of launching a third-party presidential bid, saying he would be “traveling the country and speaking out, to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle, and bring Americans together.”

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