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- Some well-heeled Republicans are prodding Manchin to run for their party’s presidential nomination in 2024, according to a CNBC report.
- That could set the stage for a primary battle against Trump, who is likely to run again.
- But Manchin has said he doesn’t want to switch parties and has backed Democrats on key priorities.
As Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia continues to stymie key aspects of President Joe Biden’s agenda, some well-heeled GOP donors say they’d like to see him run for president as a Republican in 2024.
CNBC reported on Monday that Manchin recently attended a $5000-per-plate fundraiser luncheon at the Florida estate of Nelson Peltz, a billionaire investor who’s long been friends with the West Virginia Democrat, to support Manchin’s re-election campaign.
According to an attendee who spoke with CNBC, Manchin told the group that he plans to run for re-election in West Virginia in 2024. Despite that, several top executives at the fundraiser reportedly expressed their desire for Manchin to switch parties, potentially challenge former President Donald Trump in a 2024 presidential primary, and run against Biden in the 2024 general election.
Manchin’s Senate office did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, Home Depot co-founders Ken Langone and Bernard Marcus, and billionaire investor Leon Cooperman were reportedly among the attendees, along with at least 50 other executives who predominantly contribute to Republicans.
“Mr. Peltz supports Mr. Manchin. He believes Mr. Manchin is a rare elected politician from both sides of the aisle who puts country before party, something which Mr. Peltz believes is much needed in our country today,” a spokeswoman for Peltz told CNBC.
Manchin has insisted that he’s not interested in switching parties, blasting an October report that claimed he would soon switch parties as “bullshit.” But the conservative Democrat has also mused that he doesn’t “know where in the hell I belong” in the country’s two-party system.
—Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) October 20, 2021
Manchin torpedoed much of Biden’s Build Back Better plan late last year. He opposed the sprawling social and climate bill over its size and scope, arguing it would swell the national debt to unacceptable levels.
It seems unlikely that conservative voters would flock to Manchin in a GOP primary, given the voting record he’s carved out in recent years. Manchin was against repealing the Affordable Care Act in 2017 and cast a vote to convict Trump in both his impeachment trials.
He’s also been a reliable backer of Biden’s judicial nominees and voted to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson earlier this month, calling her career “exemplary.” Though he’s been a thorn to some of Biden’s biggest legislative priorities, he gave a thumbs-up to the $1.9 trillion stimulus law last year.
Manchin opposed the 2017 Republican tax cuts as well. He favors stepping up taxes on the richest Americans to pay for a scaled-down version of their social and climate spending bill, prioritizing cutting the deficit and reining in prescription drug costs.
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