Joe Manchin: the Senate power broker on Biden’s speed dial

Joe Biden may be the US president but another Joe from the Democratic party is fast emerging as the most powerful man in Washington.

If Joe Manchin, 73, the senior senator from West Virginia, were a different sort of Democrat, he would garner little attention. But he is the most conservative member of his caucus and has a propensity to cross party lines: over the past four years he voted more times in favour of Donald Trump’s agenda than any other Democratic lawmaker.

His willingness to vote with Republicans matters so much because the Democrats control the upper chamber of Congress by the slimmest of margins, 50-50, with Kamala Harris, the vice-president, able to cast a tiebreaking vote.

That means Manchin’s opposition alone is enough to torpedo Biden’s legislative agenda, or to send the White House scrambling to find at least one Republican senator to vote with their ranks.

“Right now is a particularly visceral time,” said Democratic pollster Jefrey Pollock, who has known Manchin for more than a decade. “One senator can hold everything up.”

Manchin has already flexed his muscles by saying he would vote against the confirmation of Neera Tanden, Biden’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget, citing her history of making “overtly partisan statements”.

He has also rejected the administration’s calls for a $15-per-hour minimum wage to be included in a $1.9tn stimulus bill, instead suggesting an $11-per-hour benchmark.

When Manchin publicly prevaricated over whether he would confirm Deb Haaland, a Native American, at the department of interior, some progressives suggested he had a problem with women of colour. Grace Meng, a Democratic congresswoman from New York, asked whether there was a “pattern” to his behaviour.

Manchin eventually said he would back Haaland and that his opposition to Tanden was “not personal at all”.

Supporters of the senator say he is simply acting as he has done for more than a decade in Congress: with the interests of West Virginia voters in mind, and the goal of bipartisan lawmaking at heart.

“He is not playing 3D chess, 19 moves ahead of anybody else,” said one person who has worked with Manchin. “He sees something, he feels passionately about it, he talks to people in West Virginia, and then he makes up his mind.”

A life-long West Virginian who attended the state university on a football scholarship, Manchin was a state legislator before being elected secretary of state in 2001, governor in 2005, and senator in 2010.

The largely rural Appalachian state scores at the bottom of most national league tables, from healthcare and education to the economy. And voters there, who are largely white and do not have college degrees, have shifted sharply to the right in recent years; they voted for Trump over Biden by a nearly 40-point margin in November.

But West Virginians have still supported Manchin, albeit in smaller numbers: he last won re-election in 2018 by three points, compared with a 24-point margin in 2012. He has not said whether he intends to run again when his term is up in 2024.

Political analysts say Manchin has managed to thread a political needle by aligning with his voters on social issues such as guns and abortion, while pursuing economic and environmental policies that protect the coal industry that is central to his state’s economy.

Backing the coal industry has also benefited Manchin financially. His net worth was estimated at just over $7.6m as of 2018, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, owing largely to investments in Enersystems, a coal brokerage firm.

“Senator Manchin very much represents the beliefs and the voters of West Virginia,” said Kevin Spiker, a political science professor at Ohio University who earned his PhD at West Virginia University.

Others say Manchin is driven by a desire for bipartisanship and reverence for the Senate as institution. Unlike most of his Democratic colleagues, he opposes scrapping the filibuster, an arcane Senate procedure that in effect means 60 senators need to support most pieces of legislation — no easy feat, given the current 50-50 split.

One of Manchin’s signature proposals is a bill he drafted in 2013 with Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey after the Sandy Hook mass shooting that would require background checks for most gun sales. It has failed to garner enough support to pass the Senate, despite repeated efforts by the senators and the Obama White House.

Allies say the gun bill reflects how Manchin — who was also instrumental in drawing up the $900bn economic stimulus compromise that Trump signed at the end of last year — thrives on working across the political aisle.

“He invites senators to his boat where he lives in DC to come together, because that is what he did as governor,” said Pollock, referring to Manchin’s houseboat, Almost Heaven, where he often entertains fellow lawmakers to hash out deals.

But allies and detractors alike say while Manchin urges compromise, he is not prone to backing down himself. The senator frequently locked horns with Obama and with Trump, whom he voted to convict at both of his Senate impeachment trials.

Manchin has spoken to Biden one-to-one on several occasions since the White House changed hands, with one fellow senator joking the president’s team has the West Virginian on “speed dial”.

But those close to the senator insist he is not easily persuaded. “The Biden White House can try,” said the person who worked with Manchin. “But the Trump White House and the Obama White House could not change him.”