After spending months teasing a potential third-party presidential run in 2024, retiring Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced Friday that he will not launch an eleventh-hour bid for the White House this cycle. Only yesterday had Manchin floated Utah senator Mitt Romney and former Republican senator Rob Portman as hypothetical vice presidential picks in the event that he decided to run for president.

“I will not be seeking a third party run,” Manchin, said in a speech in Morgantown, West Virginia, Friday morning. “I will not be involved in a presidential run.”

The 76-year-old conservative Democrat’s announcement comes as welcome news to allies of President Joe Biden, who have long fretted that a centrist third-party ticket might hand the election to former President Donald Trump.

Biden aligned Democrats quickly praised Manchin for the move. “He wants to see this country move forward and he’s concerned about fringes on the right and the left. And he believes he’s got a voice and I think he will have a voice,” former Democratic senator Doug Jones of Alabama told National Review in an interview. “I haven’t talked to him in a while, but I am hoping that he will use that voice to help the Democratic Party move forward.”

Democrats have directed much of their ire towards No Labels, the nonprofit issue advocacy group that has spent millions in recent years on ballot access efforts in preparation for a potential “unity ticket” in 2024.

Manchin’s announcement comes one week after another prospective No Labels candidate, former Maryland governor and former No Labels co-chair Larry Hogan, said he will run for his state’s open Senate seat in 2024.