The junior senator from West Virginia is Democrat Joe Manchin, a popular former governor who nonetheless had to fight to claim the seat of the late Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd in 2010, a tough year for Democrats everywhere. Read More
The junior senator from West Virginia is Democrat Joe Manchin, a popular former governor who nonetheless had to fight to claim the seat of the late Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd in 2010, a tough year for Democrats everywhere.
Manchin hails from a prominent political family. He grew up in Farmington, a few miles up Buffalo Creek from the industrial city of Fairmont on the Monongahela River. He remembers working in his grandfather’s grocery store, and later in his father’s carpet and furniture store. Manchin took a semester off from college to help his father rebuild the store after a fire. His grandfather and father were both elected mayor of Farmington. His uncle, A. James Manchin, was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates and was also secretary of state and state treasurer.
After graduating from West Virginia University, Joe Manchin went to work in the carpet and furniture business, helping to send his four siblings to college. Then he started a coal brokerage company and eventually moved to Fairmont. In 1982, at age 35, Manchin was elected to the House of Delegates and in 1986 to the state Senate. He then ran for governor, only to lose in the Democratic primary to legislator Charlotte Pritt. When Secretary of State Ken Hechler ran for the U.S. House in 2000, Manchin ran to succeed him, as did Pritt. This time, Manchin beat her in the primary, 51% to 29%, and went on to win the general election.
In May 2003, Manchin announced he would challenge Democratic Gov. Bob Wise in the 2004 primary. Later that month, Wise admitted that he had had an extramarital affair and would not seek re-election. Manchin worked successfully to get support from both unions and business. His stands on cultural issues were impeccably conservative: He was opposed to abortion rights, gun control and same sex marriage. Manchin won the Democratic primary with 53%. And he went on to easily defeat Republican Monty Warner in the general election, 64% to 34%, carrying 52 of 55 counties.
Manchin had been in office for just one year when he gained renown as the public face of desperate attempts to rescue 13 trapped coal miners after the January 2006 explosion at the Sago Mine in central West Virginia. Manchin, whose uncle was killed in a 1968 mine accident that claimed 78 lives, gave numerous televised interviews from the mine site. But he also mistakenly announced “the miracle of all miracles”—that 12 of the miners had survived—when in fact they had died. The blunder could have been career-ending. But Manchin’s standing skyrocketed in the polls, partly because West Virginia Republicans decided that invoking the accident politically was a line that they would not cross. After two other deadly mining accidents, Manchin in early February ordered safety inspections at all mines in the state. In 2007, he signed new safety laws mandating certain ventilation practices and giving the state authority to temporarily shut down mines with violations.
Manchin had success on other issues as well. In 2006, he signed into law eight bills designed to improve health care in the state, including a low-income health care plan providing basic care at clinics, a catastrophic health care insurance program, and a new mental health commission. He also signed legislation restricting city governments’ power to take property by eminent domain. Manchin did not have serious competition for re-election in 2008, and he won, 70% to 26%.
His popularity sparked speculation about his political future. When Byrd died in June 2010 after 50 years in office (the longest service of any member of Congress in history), Manchin was seen as the Democrats’ best hope for keeping the seat, which Byrd had used to bring federal largesse to his economically hard-pressed state. Although empowered to appoint himself to the Senate pending a special election, Manchin declined to do so. Instead, he appointed his former chief counsel, Carte Goodwin, as a placeholder.
Republicans initially hadn’t planned to invest in the race. In September, a Rasmussen survey showed Manchin with a soaring job approval rating of 69%. His GOP opponent was John Raese, a wealthy businessman whom Byrd defeated four years earlier by nearly 2-to-1. But Raese, who poured his own money into the contest, turned out to be a stronger challenger than expected in a highly favorable year for Republicans. He ran ads seeking to tie Manchin to President Barack Obama. The National Republican Senatorial Committee launched its own ads portraying Manchin as a rubber stamp for Obama’s agenda, and the race became a toss-up.
Manchin distanced himself from the president, even at the expense of flip-flopping. After saying early in 2010 that he supported Obama’s health care overhaul, by October Manchin was saying he would have voted against it as a senator. The health care legislation had proved to be highly unpopular in some quarters, especially among conservative voters. The Democrats’ cap-and-trade bill to curb carbon emissions was also highly unpopular in West Virginia coal country, still an important economic driver in the state. Manchin ran an ad in which he shot a mock copy of the carbon emissions bill with a rifle. “This is the first campaign I’ve ever been in that you haven’t been judged on your performance,” Manchin complained to McClatchy News Service. “It doesn’t matter, or doesn’t seem to.”
For his part, Manchin raised questions about Raese’s commitment to the state, pointing out repeatedly that the steel and limestone magnate owned a home in Florida and that his wife was registered to vote there. Raese called the move “desperation.” Manchin also hammered Raese for his support for eliminating the minimum wage and abolishing the Education Department. He began to pull ahead in the closing days of the contest, although he was outspent $6.3 million to $4.4 million. The closeness of the race was an indication of voter discontent with Obama and incumbent Democrats. “Under standard operating rules, it should’ve been a walk” for Manchin, West Virginia Wesleyan College history professor Robert Rupp told The State Journal newspaper. Still, Manchin won by 10 percentage points, 53% to 43%.
He went to Washington immediately after the election to begin serving the final two years of Byrd’s term. Manchin voted on a proposal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts except for taxpayers earning over $1 million, although he had said during his campaign he favored the Republican position of extending them for all taxpayers. But he took a conservative position in voting no on a proposal to repeal the ban on openly gay members in the military, the only Democrat to join Republicans in opposing repeal of the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of the Clinton era.
Still, Manchin could not seem to turn the vote in his favor. He was roundly criticized around the state for missing a final vote on repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and also for missing a major vote on a bill to give legal status to the children of some illegal immigrants. The Charleston Gazette called him “absolutely gutless.” Manchin apologized publicly, saying he missed the December votes to be with his grandchildren over the holidays.
