Manchin says he'd consider White House bid after declining to seek reelection to Senate

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin on Wednesday suggested he was open to a 2024 White House bid after previously announcing he would not seek reelection to his current post.

Manchin announced he would not seek reelection last week. Any such effort would have been extremely difficult for the Democrat, given his home state has trended increasingly Republican in recent years. Speculation has abounded for much of 2023 that he mount a third-party bid for the White House under the No Labels banner, a prospect about which he has generally remained vague.

During a Wednesday appearance on "Meet the Press," however, Manchin signaled he would at least consider the idea, telling host Kristen Welker that "I will do anything I can to help my country, and you’re saying, 'Does that mean you would consider it?' Absolutely. Every American should consider it if they’re in a position to help save the country."

"I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure, to mobilize that moderate, sensible, commonsense middle," he continued.

Manchin has repeated frustrated his Democratic colleagues with his unwillingness to amend the Senate filibuster to allow the legislature to push through more radical legislation. He further has stated that he was "thinking seriously" about leaving the party altogether.

"The brand has become so bad — the D brand and R brand. In West Virginia, the D brand because it’s [the] national brand," he said in August. "It’s not the Democrats in West Virginia, it’s the Democrats in Washington."

Were he to mount such a bid, he would join fellow third-party candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.