Why Manchin remains in the Democratic Party but Sinema doesn’t

Sinema joined the Democratic Party to advance her career. Manchin’s roots in the Democratic Party run far deeper

(Getty Images)

Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s announcement on Friday that she would quit the Democratic Party didn’t necessarily surprise political observers. She has long been more comfortable working with Republicans than her fellow Democratic colleagues, and hasn’t hesitated to buck the Democratic leadership. During votes, she can often be seen chatting up Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Whip John Thune.

But almost immediately, Ms Sinema’s defection prompted another question: Why doesn’t Senator Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia who also faces re-election in 2024, join her?

He has plenty of reasons to do so, given that every county in West Virginia voted for Donald Trump and Governor Jim Justice, Mr Manchin’s former friend, sho switched from being a Democrat to a Republican in the beginning of Mr Trump’s presidency. Meanwhile, Ms Sinema’s home state of Arizona is becoming much more blue, having just re-elected Mark Kelly to a full six-year term and electing Katie Hobbs as governor.

Indeed, the question was posed on Twitter by none other than Hoppy Kercheval, who hosts a show on WVMetro News that Mr Manchin frequently uses to explain his decisions in Washington to home-state voters. (Expect Mr Manchin to pop up on the show to announce whether he will seek re-election next cycle in the coming weeks).

Mr Manchin and Ms Sinema’s relationship is far more complicated than the narrative of the two collaborating to obstruct the Biden agenda might suggest. And in truth, their divergent approaches stem from their backgrounds.

This doesn’t mean they don’t have commonalities: They both support maintaining the filibuster even as Democrats have turned against the 60-vote threshold. Their fiscal conservatism forced their colleagues to pare down their demands in Build Back Better before Mr Manchin killed it, but the two iconoclasts diverged on their reasoning: where Ms Sinema opposed tax increases, Mr Manchin disliked new social spending programs like expanded Child Tax Credit and paid family leave – the latter of which Ms Sinema lobbied him to support.

Unlike Ms Sinema, Mr Manchin doesn’t seem to trust Mr McConnell; earlier this year, he went behind the Republican leader’s back to negotiate with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer even after Mr McConnell tried to stop him doing so by threatening to sink what became the CHIPS and Science Act. (Flashback: when Mr Manchin won re-election in 2018 after Mr McConnell told Mr Trump that Republicans were “going to crush him like a grape,” Mr Manchin sent him a jar of crushed grapes.)

Ms Sinema sees the political landscape very differently. Last week, she told Burgess Everett of Politico that she “never really fit into a box of any political party.” And that’s perfectly accurate in that she largely joined the Democratic Party out of political expediency.

Ms Sinema first ran for office as a Democrat in 2004 after a stint as a Green Party activist. Throughout her tenure in Arizona’s state legislature – and indeed during her entire time as a US congresswoman – she served in the minority party.

Her 2018 election to the Senate made her the first Democrat to win a Senate race in the state in 30 years; before Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020, it had not voted for a Democrat for president since Bill Clinton won it in 1996.

By contrast, Democrats dominated West Virginia throughout much of Mr Manchin’s life. His own uncle was a Democrat who served as treasurer and secretary of state. From 1932 to 1996, the only Republican presidential nominees to win West Virginia were Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1984 – both elections that saw the incumbent sweep 49 states.

The Mountain State truly began turning into Republican-friendly territory in 2000 when Al Gore’s environmental policies repelled its previously Democratic voters working in and around the coal industry, delivering the state to George W Bush. Yet that same year, Mr Manchin won his race for secretary of state.

In 2004, when John Kerry lost the state, Mr Manchin won his first term as governor; in 2008 he won re-election despite Barack Obama losing the state; in 2010, he won the open Senate seat in a special election held during a catastrophic cycle for Democrats, and in 2012, he secured a full term even as Mr Obama lost again.

Mr Manchin is thus firmly rooted in a specifically Democratic political culture, and that deep connection is guiding his path today. According to Politico’s Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns book This Will Not Pass, Mr Manchin has rebuffed entreaties from Senate Republicans to switch parties, telling them: “I am who I am, I’m a West Virginia Democrat.”

That might be why he said last week after Senator Raphael Warnock’s victory in Georgia that he was “tickled to death” to see his party grabbing a 51st vote in the Senate. On one hand, he gets an extra vote for Democratic priorities – but an extra vote means he can afford to put some daylight between him and the Biden agenda at which he so often seems to bristle without actually handing the chamber to the GOP.

Tellingly, he also announced his support for Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court long before Ms Sinema did; unlike him, she waited for Republicans such as Susan Collins and Mitt Romney to get on board first.

Yet as Mr Kercheval’s question on Twitter may suggest, Ms Sinema’s defection may have boxed Mr Manchin in. Now he will face numerous questions on the home front about why he isn’t joining her – a move that could endanger him should he seek another term.