Senate

GOP senators say Manchin bid would boost Trump, hurt Biden

by Alexander Bolton - 07/20/23 6:00 AM ET

Republican senators say a third-party presidential bid by centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) likely would pull votes away from President Biden and help former President Trump win election to a second term if he wins the GOP presidential nomination.

Many Democratic senators agree and are stepping up their criticism of No Labels, a bipartisan political advocacy group that is planning to raise $70 million to put a third-party candidate on the ballot in all 50 states.

Manchin, a conservative Democrat who has repeatedly clashed with Biden, fueled speculation of a third-party run by appearing at a Monday town hall sponsored by No Labels in New Hampshire.

GOP senators say Manchin could send Trump back to the White House if he tries to run for president as a centrist, given Trump’s solid grasp on the Republican base.

“The No Labels effort would elect Donald Trump,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), a prominent Trump critic in the Senate GOP.

“I asked my chief strategist: ‘What would a candidate have to be like in order to draw [voters] from Donald Trump as opposed to drawing from Joe Biden?’ He said it would have to be someone to the right of Donald Trump,” Romney said.

Any No Labels candidate — including Manchin — Romney said, would be to the left of Trump and would pull votes from Biden.

“And a poll would prove it,” he said. “By the way, we do all this talking. Just run a poll. Run a poll: Biden versus Trump. Then run the same poll: Biden, Trump, Manchin — and see who is affected. I know the answer.”

Trump is dominating GOP primary polls, leaving many Republicans thinking he will be the party’s nominee.

A Quinnipiac University poll of 727 Republican and Republican-leaning voters nationwide published Wednesday showed Trump leading his closest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 54 percent to 35 percent.

The poll, which surveyed 2,056 adults, also showed 47 percent of respondents said they would consider voting for a third-party candidate.

Sixty-four percent of independents said they would consider voting for a third-party candidate, while 35 percent of Democrats and 38 percent of Republicans said they would consider a third-party option.

Biden won more votes than Trump in 2020 from independents and voters not affiliated with the Democratic Party or Republican Party. Independents favored Biden over Trump 52 percent to 43 percent.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who ran for president in 2016, agreed Manchin could pull votes from Biden but cautioned the political dynamics of a three-way race can be hard to predict.

“My guess is [Manchin] is probably moderate to liberal on social issues, maybe a little more fiscally conservative than many Democrats. Are there some Democrats who would go for that? Maybe — and the fact that he is a Democrat maybe pulls more [voters.]”

Paul said a Green Party candidate — Cornel West is running for the party’s nomination — would also pull votes away from Biden.

“I would guess that Manchin would take more Democrat [votes], but if Trump is the candidate, there are a lot of establishment, I call them the pro-war caucus of the Republican Party, that worry that [Trump] won’t be extreme enough on the military and all that stuff … that could vote for Manchin,” Paul added.

The Kentucky senator, however, said Trump would keep his base voters.

Senate Democrats are worried a Manchin run for president would be very “dangerous” to Biden’s reelection hopes.

“I think it’s dangerous because whether they mean to or not, it could help the reelection of Donald Trump, which would be a disaster for our country,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said.

“Donald Trump’s supporters are baked in,” she said. “So the question becomes of those that do not support him, who do they vote for? You divide that vote. It certainly doesn’t help.”

Michigan was one of three key swing states — along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that helped Trump defeat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

Biden then carried the state by 154,000 votes in 2020.

More from The Hill

Manchin on Monday refused to rule out running for president next year on the ballot line sponsored by No Labels.

He said speculating about his presidential ambitions is “putting the cart ahead of the horse” and criticized both parties for drifting increasingly toward the fringes of the political spectrum.

“We’re here to make sure that the American people have an option, and the option is can you move the political parties off their respective sides —they’ve gone too far right and too far left,” he said at the town hall event at St. Anselm College.

Other Senate Democrats are alarmed about a potential third-party presidential campaign backed by No Labels.

“I think this presidential effort is very foolish,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who was Clinton’s running mate in 2016.

“I’ve urged people that I know connected with No Labels: ‘Stick with trying to find legislative common ground and don’t split up the forces of democracy at a time when the real issue is not Democrats versus Republicans, it’s pro-democracy versus pro-authoritarian.’”

Other Democrats are calling on the group to reveal its list of donors. It is not required to do so as an advocacy group classified under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who represents a state Biden carried by just more than 10,000 votes in 2020, said a third-party No Labels bid isn’t “good for our democracy.”

“This is a few rich guys that are putting dark money into our political process, so I’m not fond of this idea. I don’t think it’s good for our democracy to have undisclosed wealthy donors funding an organization, which is clearly not a political party,” he said. “I don’t think it makes our democracy any healthier.”

Former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the founding chairman of No Labels, told “The Julie Mason Show” in a recent interview he doesn’t feel any ill will toward Biden.

“As a matter of fact, I like him very much. I admire him,” he said. “We at No Labels think that America deserves a better choice, which is a third line — maybe.”