Democratic strategists believe Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) runs the risk of getting "exposed" to intense mudslinging and deep investigations into his personal and financial life from both Democrats and Republicans if he decides to run as a third-party candidate in 2024.
Steve Jarding, a strategist who has worked for various Democratic senators interested in presidential runs, said in an interview with the Hill that he believes Manchin could draw some votes away from former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden in the general election, but that may be at the senator's own peril.
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"He comes from a small state. He’ll get exposed,” he said, explaining that the West Virginia Democrat would be subjected to intense negative advertising and numerous investigations into his business dealings if Trump and Biden see him making headway with voters.
“When either Trump or Biden see he’s hurting them more than the other side, they’ll take him down; they’ll go after him,” Jarding said.
Manchin has not announced a campaign for president. Instead, he announced on Nov. 9 that he would not seek reelection to the Senate, promising to "fight to unite the middle."
Democratic strategist Jonathan Kott, former adviser to Manchin, said the senator's possible run for the White House should be taken seriously.
“I always take Joe Manchin at his word. I think the first thing he’s going to do is go around the country, see if he can mobilize what he thinks is a moderate majority of voters, people who want their government to get stuff done and not the people who focus on the fighting of the extremes of each party,” Kott told the Hill.
Manchin said in his retirement statement that he would spend time traveling the United States to see whether there is a growing desire from voters to unify the divided political wings. Kott said Manchin will hold off on making any decisions on a presidential run and spend time talking to voters "to see if there's an appetite" for his ideas of centrism.
However, several critics are skeptical that a Manchin presidential ticket would benefit the country, with Democratic allies specifically worried that a third-party effort would harm Biden's chances at reelection and hand a victory to Trump. Democrats have already accused No Labels, a third-party organization, of working to aid the GOP — the group has floated the idea of running Manchin as a candidate and adamantly denied the accusations.
Jarding said it's possible that Manchin could sway some votes away from Trump in a three-way race.
“He could swing that race in one direction or the other,” Jarding said of the 2024 election, which he said will be so close that it's hard to predict the outcome.
The last time a presidential election had a strong third-party candidate was in 1992 with Ross Perot. However, the difference between the 1992 and 2024 elections is that Biden and Trump are both unpopular.
“If there’s a significant portion of Americans that were either going to stay home … or want to take their frustration out, [Manchin] could get votes,” Jarding said, noting that Manchin will most likely not receive any electoral votes — similar to Perot.
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Jarding said that it would be hard for candidates such as Manchin to gain traction in a presidential race because "nobody thinks he can win."
“He would face very strong headwinds, so I don’t see how he could even come close to winning a state," Jarding said. “He easily could hurt Biden more than Trump, but because both [Biden and Trump] are so disliked by a significant portion of the voting population, I’m not sure of that."