Sen. Joe Manchin has shown Democrats you can be rational and still profit.
The West Virginia Democrat has literally been the man in the middle of both parties since Joe Biden became president – siding with Biden on infrastructure spending, for instance, while also rejecting Biden’s radical agenda on green energy, the unnecessary deficit spending, and general wokeness.
He is, in short, a moderate Democrat in a state that former President Donald Trump won by 39 points and 42 points, respectively, in the last two elections.
And it’s paying off with the folks back home.
A new Morning Consult poll released Monday showed that Manchin’s approval rating in his home state is now 57 percent. That’s up from 40 percent a year ago.
That’s the strongest gain of any senator in the poll. Ironically, Manchin’s spike in favorability is being driven by Republicans.
His standing among West Virginia’s GOP ranks has doubled in the past year, to an approval rating of 69 percent.
As Morning Consult put it, “Manchin’s boost stands out due to the dramatic shift in the coalition supporting him, which has reddened to a staggering extent.”
Manchin’s anti-Biden drift has more than offset Manchin’s plunge among Democrats, whose approval rating of him has fallen 19 points over the past year.
Manchin, the pollster added, “has faced the wrath of progressives nationwide during Joe Biden’s presidency for killing a range of domestic agenda items on voting rights, social spending programs and climate change. But at home in West Virginia, Morning Consult Political Intelligence data suggests the moderate Democrat knows exactly what he’s doing.”
He now ranks as the eighth-most popular senator in America, Morning Consult reports.
“It turns out that Joe Manchin knows more about West Virginia voters than D.C. strategists,” Jonathan Kott, a former Manchin aide, told Morning Consult. “The amount of interactions he has with his voters I don’t think can be paralleled by other members.”
Only three other senators posted gains of at least 10 percent in popularity over the past year: Republicans: John Thune of South Dakota (11 percent), Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (10 percent) and Alex Padilla, a California Democrat (10 percent).
What makes Manchin unique is not just the size of his approval boost,. but that he’s in the minority party back home.
Of the 25 senators who posted a gain of at least 2 percentage points, only Sens. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, and Pat Toomey, a Republican, can say likewise. Tester ranked ninth, with a 3-point increase, while Toomey was 17th, adding 2 percent.
As for Florida, GOP Sens. Marco Rubio, and Rick Scott have both gotten stronger at home. Rubio’s rating went up three points, while Scott’s climbed by two points.
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