By Ray Cardello for December 4, 2023, Season 23 / Post 31

Joe Manchin will not be seeking another term as Senator from West Virginia. Manchin has represented West Virginia in the U.S. Senate since 2010. Before going to Washington, Manchin served the Mountain State as Governor and Secretary of State. Joe Manchin has been the lone Democrat at the state or federal level in West Virginia, and he sees the future fading for his home state as the Biden Administration works feverishly to shut down the number two industry in his state. He is stepping down from Congress but may challenge President Biden in 2024 as a third-party candidate. He has not announced yet, but all indicators point to him running for the White House.

Coal Mining is the number two West Virginia industry, generating over $7 Billion annually, and second only to the Healthcare industry, which generates $11 Billion. Joe Biden is hell-bent on eliminating coal mining and coal-generated electric plants. Biden’s climate czar, John Kerry, announced this week that the United States is committed to ceasing to build coal electric plants and closing all coal mines by 2035. Nearly one in ten people in West Virginia now or have worked in the coal industry.

John Kerry was in Dubai when he made this dire announcement for the coal industry. Kerry was in Dubai attending a meeting of the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which is a collection of 57 committed to destroying fossil fuels to be replaced by solar panels and windmills. John Kerry has no official position in the Government but yields tremendous power in the Biden Administration’s effort to destroy America. China, a favorite country of Biden and Kerry, is not a member of this Alliance, and they are going in the other direction with Coal. China is mining and buying Coal for their coal-powered electric plants, and they put a new coal plant online every two weeks. We can be confident this topic was not discussed at the recent Summit in San Francisco with Xi Jinping. Kerry sat at that Summit table, but for what purpose?

Manchin has been at odds with Biden since Joe was sworn in as Manchin saw what Biden intended for West Virginia. Biden deceived Manchin when the President made concessions regarding Coal in exchange for Manchin’s support for the Inflation Reduction Act. Manchin knew quickly after he voted in favor of the bill that Biden had, for sake of a better word, screwed him. Manchin has been able to keep his seat in a very Red state, and Trump won in 2020 by 40 plus points. He knows that the people of West Virginia will never vote for his re-election, and it is time to end his twenty-five-year career representing the Mountaineers.

West Virginia is not alone in watching Biden harm their economy and future. Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Kentucky are also heavily invested in Coal. Biden loves to tout his record of job creation, which we all know is exaggerated by the epidemic years, but what he is doing to kill jobs in the coal mining, oil drilling, petroleum, auto manufacturing, and auto sales/service will be his legacy. Manchin is not going to go down with the ship. He is not a young man at 76 but still sees a future in Washington and knows that a third-party run will spell doom to a Biden re-election. I think he sees that as sweet revenge.