Manchin says he wouldn't back Sanders against Trump in presidential race

[Celerity]

90. your maths are off

I never started out by subtracting Manchin from the equation in terms of a priori making his seat a Rethug-held one

what I did say was:

IF Manchin somehow helps Collins win, that is one less flip we have

and THEN I said IF he also flips himself

that is a net 4 seat potential loss for us

I break it down in simple maths

lets say Collins loses and Manchin stays with US and we are sitting at a 51-49 majority (+2 in terms of seats)

now say Collins wins (so 50/50) and Manchin himself flips caucuses (I ONLY see that possibility (and I am NOT saying he does it for sure at all) if Warren or especially Bernie (but so unlikely Sanders wins shit) is POTUS)

Rethugs now hold a 51-49 majority (so +2 over us)

going from a +2 in our favour to a -2 against us

is a negative 4 net swing


Finally, a much more likely outcome (that is still disastrous)

Biden wins

BUT

Collins wins to give the Rethugs a 51-49 majority, and the cold hard fact is Manchin IS helping her chances to keep that damn seat

flip Collins and we would have had a 50-50 tie with Biden's VP breaking ties

Manchin is bad news overall (his only truly main redeeming quality is he caucuses with us, but even that can change), as his aiding Collins can cost us, and he also votes with Rump (61% of the time in the last full Congress) more than any other Democratic Senator, AND he votes for Rumps SCOTUS nominees, PLUS he is threat to flip caucuses, given a bad scenario

I DO appreciate the fact he is possibly the best we can get in WV, but he is a DINO far too often, especially on many of the giant issues

Hopefully we can get to a 52-48 majority, so Manchin and Sinema (the other Dem Senator who votes a lot with Rump) cannot bollocks us up very often

Also hopefully, Hickenlooper does not turn into Manchin/Sinema part 3, in which case we will need a 53-47 majority to be safe overall