1. Joseph Anthony Manchin III is an American businessman and retired politician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia from 2010 to 2025.
140 Facts About Joe Manchin
1. 2.
Joe Manchin was West Virginia's only congressional Democrat until he registered as an independent in 2024.
3.
Joe Manchin served from 2001 to 2005 as the 27th secretary of state of West Virginia and from 2005 to 2010 as the 34th governor of West Virginia.
4.
Joe Manchin won the 2004 West Virginia gubernatorial election by a large margin and was reelected by an even larger margin in 2008.
5.
Joe Manchin represented the most Republican-leaning constituency of any Democrat or independent in Congress during his tenure.
6.
Joe Manchin has called himself a "centrist, moderate, conservative Democrat" and was generally regarded as the Senate Democratic caucus's most centrist member.
7.
Joe Manchin opposed President Barack Obama's energy policies, including reductions and restrictions on coal mining; voted against cloture for the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 ; supported President Donald Trump's border wall and immigration policies; and voted to confirm most of Trump's cabinet and judicial appointees, including Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
8.
Joe Manchin is among the more non-interventionist members of the Democratic caucus, having repeatedly called for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and opposed most military interventions in Syria.
9.
In November 2023, Joe Manchin announced he would not run for reelection.
10.
Joseph Anthony Joe Manchin III was born on August 24,1947, in Farmington, West Virginia, a small coal mining town.
11.
Joe Manchin is the second of five children of Mary O and John Manchin.
12.
The name "Joe Manchin" was derived from the Italian name "Mancina".
13.
Joe Manchin's father was of Italian descent, and his paternal grandparents emigrated to the United States from the town of San Giovanni in Fiore, in Calabria.
14.
Joe Manchin's father owned a carpet and furniture store, and his grandfather, Joseph Joe Manchin, owned a grocery store.
15.
Joe Manchin entered West Virginia University on a football scholarship in 1965, but an injury during practice ended his football career.
16.
Joe Manchin graduated in 1970 with a degree in business administration and went to work for his family's business.
17.
Joe Manchin has been a close friend of former Alabama Crimson Tide football coach Nick Saban since childhood.
18.
In 1988, Joe Manchin founded Enersystems, a waste coal brokerage company based in Fairmont, West Virginia.
19.
At some point during his tenure as governor, Joe Manchin moved his Enersystems holdings into a blind trust.
20.
Joe Manchin was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1982 at age 35 and in 1986 was elected to the West Virginia Senate, where he served until 1996.
21.
Joe Manchin ran for governor in 1996, losing the Democratic primary election to Charlotte Pritt.
22.
In 2003, Joe Manchin announced his intention to challenge incumbent Democratic governor Bob Wise in the 2004 Democratic primary.
23.
Wise decided not to seek reelection after a scandal, and Joe Manchin won the Democratic primary and general election by large margins.
24.
Joe Manchin's election marked the first time since 1964 that a West Virginia governor was succeeded by another governor from the same party.
25.
In July 2005, Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship sued Joe Manchin, alleging that Joe Manchin had violated Blankenship's First Amendment rights by threatening increased government scrutiny of his coal operations in retaliation for Blankenship's political activities.
26.
Joe Manchin later acknowledged that a miscommunication had occurred with rescue teams in the mine.
27.
Joe Manchin refused to comment on the subject until Byrd's death, except to say that he would not appoint himself to the Senate.
28.
Byrd died on June 28,2010, and Joe Manchin appointed Carte Goodwin, his 36-year-old legal adviser, on July 16.
29.
On July 20,2010, Joe Manchin announced he would seek the Senate seat in a special election for the remaining two years of Byrd's term.
30.
Joe Manchin did not endorse President Barack Obama for reelection in 2012, saying that he had "some real differences" with the presumptive nominees of both major parties.
31.
Joe Manchin found fault with Obama's economic and energy policies and questioned Romney's understanding of the "challenges facing ordinary people".
32.
Joe Manchin was challenged in the Democratic primary by Paula Jean Swearengin.
33.
Joe Manchin criticized Manchin for voting with Republicans and supporting Trump's policies.
34.
Joe Manchin has said he will not run for reelection in 2024.
35.
Joe Manchin indicated that he would not be leaving politics, saying he would be "traveling the country and speaking out, to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle, and bring Americans together".
36.
On May 31,2024, Joe Manchin announced that he would leave the Democratic Party and file as an independent but would remain a member of the Senate Democratic Caucus, alongside fellow independent Senators Bernie Sanders, Angus King, and Kyrsten Sinema.
37.
Joe Manchin said that to "stay true to myself and remain committed to put country before party, I have decided to register as an independent with no party affiliation and continue to fight for America's sensible majority".
38.
Joe Manchin was the only Democrat to vote to confirm Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, one of two Democrats to vote to confirm Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator, and one of three to vote to confirm Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
39.
Joe Manchin voted for Trump's first two Supreme Court nominees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
40.
Joe Manchin opposed the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, citing the closeness to the upcoming presidential election.
41.
In January 2022, The Hill reported that Joe Manchin "spent heavily on private security" during the last three months of 2021 "as he became a prime target for progressive protesters angry at his role blocking a reconciliation package in the Senate".
42.
Furthermore, "a source close to Joe Manchin told The Hill the senator and his family had been subjected to specific threats, both in Washington and in West Virginia".
43.
On March 25,2022, Joe Manchin announced that he would vote to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
44.
On November 9,2023, Joe Manchin announced that he will not seek reelection in 2024.
45.
Joe Manchin said that his decision was made "after months of deliberation and long conversations" with his family, adding that he would instead be "traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together".
46.
In early 2024, Joe Manchin announced he was registering as independent, and later that year announced he would not run for reelection, but did not rule out running for office in the future.
47.
Joe Manchin said his biggest regret during Biden's presidency was voting for the American Rescue Plan, saying that it helped increased inflation.
48.
Joe Manchin received the most funding from the oil and gas industry of any senator from May 2020 to May 2021, including $1.6 million in donations from fossil fuel PACs.
49.
Joe Manchin receives funding from individuals and PACs connected to law and real estate, among others.
50.
In June 2021, ExxonMobil lobbyist Keith McCoy said that Joe Manchin was one of its key targets for funding and that he participated in weekly meetings with the company.
51.
In 2023, Joe Manchin "stoked rumors about his presidential ambitions by holding a call with No Labels supporters and meeting with influential community leaders from Iowa, a state that holds outsized sway in guiding the trajectory of the presidential primaries".
52.
Joe Manchin now serves as a No Labels National Co-Chair, and on July 17,2023, he and former US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman Jr.
53.
On February 16,2024, Joe Manchin announced that he would not run for president.
54.
Joe Manchin ultimately refused to endorse Harris, citing her call to end the filibuster in the United States Senate.
55.
Joe Manchin is often considered a moderate, or even conservative, Democrat.
56.
In 2017, Joe Manchin became an honorary co-chair of No Labels.
57.
On February 6,2022, Joe Manchin endorsed Senator Lisa Murkowski in her reelection campaign that year.
58.
On November 9,2023, Joe Manchin announced that he would not seek reelection in 2024.
59.
Joe Manchin has mixed ratings from both the abortion-rights and anti-abortion movements' political action groups.
60.
Joe Manchin has the endorsement of Democrats for Life of America, a Democratic PAC that opposes abortion.
61.
In January 2018, Joe Manchin joined two other Democrats and most Republicans by voting for a bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks.
62.
In June 2018, upon Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement, Manchin urged Trump not to appoint a judge who would seek to overturn Roe v Wade but to instead choose a "centrist".
63.
In 2019, Joe Manchin was one of three Democrats to join all Republicans in voting for a bill to require that doctors care for infants born alive after a failed abortion.
64.
In February 2022, Joe Manchin was the only Democratic senator to vote against an abortion proposal, Women's Health Protection Act, that would have included limiting the states' ability to restrict abortion access, among other expansions.
65.
In May 2022, Joe Manchin said that he would again vote against his party's bill, the Women's Health Protection Act, which included codifying federal abortion rights as the Supreme Court appeared poised to overturn Roe.
66.
Joe Manchin said the bill went too far and that he would support a narrower measure that still included codifying Roe.
67.
Joe Manchin was the only Senate Democrat to oppose the legislation.
68.
Republicans later suggested that Joe Manchin was the source of the rumors.
69.
In 2018, Joe Manchin said that he became and remained a Democrat because everyone that he knew growing up in Farmington, West Virginia was a Democrat during the New Deal era.
70.
In 2021, during the time Joe Manchin opposed the Biden-supported Build Back Better bill, several Republicans urged Joe Manchin to join the Republican Party.
71.
Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn said that they had attempted to convince Joe Manchin to do so.
72.
In 2022, Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post: "The fact is, Joe Manchin should have been brought into the Republican Party long ago".
73.
In December 2018, after the Federal Communications Commission announced a pause on the funding program for wireless broadband during its conduct of an investigation, Joe Manchin announced his intent to hold the renomination of Brendan Carr in protest of the move.
74.
Joe Manchin lifted his hold the following week after the FCC promised that it would make funding for wireless broadband in rural areas a priority.
75.
Joe Manchin said that West Virginia had been awaiting funding for rebuilding for three years since a series of floods in June 2016.
76.
In February 2019, Joe Manchin said the collapse of an omnibus education reform proposal resulted from state lawmakers not laying the groundwork for broad support for the proposal.
77.
Joe Manchin sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and supports a comprehensive, "all-of-the-above" energy approach that includes coal.
78.
Joe Manchin served as president of Energysystems in the late 1990s before becoming active in politics.
79.
In 2011, Joe Manchin was the only Democratic senator to support the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which sought to prohibit the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas.
80.
In 2012, Joe Manchin supported a failed GOP effort to "scuttle Environmental Protection Agency regulations that mandate cuts in mercury pollution and other toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants", while West Virginia's other senator, Jay Rockefeller, did not.
81.
In December 2014, Joe Manchin was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to the EPA urging it to give states more time to comply with its rule on power plants and calling for an elimination of the 2020 targets in the final rule.
82.
Joe Manchin criticized President Barack Obama's environmental regulations as a "war on coal" and demanded what he called a proper balance between the needs of the environment and the coal business.
83.
In February 2019, after Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for a vote on the Green New Deal in order to get Democratic members of the Senate on record regarding the legislation, Joe Manchin expressed opposition to the plan:.
84.
In 2021, Joe Manchin opposed the "Clean Electricity Performance Program" in a budget reconciliation bill, leading to its removal from that bill.
85.
Joe Manchin has co-sponsored balanced budget amendments put forth by Senators Mike Lee, Richard Shelby, and Mark Udall.
86.
Joe Manchin has voted against raising the federal debt ceiling.
87.
Joe Manchin was the only Democrat to break from his party and vote in favor of the Republican proposal.
88.
Joe Manchin is critical of American military intervention overseas, particularly in Afghanistan and Syria.
89.
Joe Manchin has repeatedly demanded the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and has opposed most military intervention in Syria.
90.
Joe Manchin introduced legislation to reduce the use of overseas service and security contractors.
91.
Joe Manchin successfully amended the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act to cap contractors' taxpayer-funded salaries at $230,000.
92.
On September 16,2014, Joe Manchin announced that he would vote against a possible Senate resolution to arm Syrian opposition fighters.
93.
Joe Manchin referred to plans calling for ground troops in Syria, which had been proposed by some Republican senators, including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, as "insanity," but supported the 2017 Shayrat missile strike launched by order of President Trump in response to a chemical weapons attack allegedly perpetrated by the Syrian Government.
94.
In June 2017, Joe Manchin was one of five Democrats who, by voting against a Senate resolution disapproving of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, ensured its failure.
95.
In November 2017, in response to efforts by China to purchase tech companies based in the US, Joe Manchin was one of nine senators to cosponsor a bill that would broaden the federal government's ability to prevent foreign purchases of US firms by increasing the strength of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
96.
In November 2017, after the West Virginia Commerce Department announced an agreement with China Energy to invest $83.7 billion in shale gas development and chemical manufacturing projects in West Virginia after state Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher and China Energy President Ling Wen signed a memorandum of understanding, Joe Manchin said that he was thrilled with the signing and that he was satisfied that China Energy recognized West Virginians as the hardest-working people in the world.
97.
In May 2019, Joe Manchin cosponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and air space in disputed zones in the South China Sea.
98.
In October 2019, Joe Manchin was one of six senators to sign a bipartisan letter to Trump calling on him to "urge Turkey to end their offensive and find a way to a peaceful resolution while supporting our Kurdish partners to ensure regional stability" and arguing that to leave Syria without installing protections for American allies would endanger both them and the US.
99.
In 2012, Joe Manchin's candidacy was endorsed by the National Rifle Association, which gave him an "A" rating.
100.
Joe Manchin was criticized in 2013 for agreeing to an interview with The Journal in Martinsburg, West Virginia, but demanding that he not be asked any questions about gun control or the Second Amendment.
101.
In October 2017, following the Las Vegas shooting, Joe Manchin stated that it was "going to take President Trump, who looks at something from a law-abiding gun owner's standpoint, that makes common sense and gun sense" for progress to be made on gun legislation and that he would not rule out reviving the Joe Manchin-Toomey bill if the legislation attracted enough Republican cosponsors.
102.
Joe Manchin added that he was willing to work with Trump and the GOP to formulate a replacement.
103.
Joe Manchin took "an unusual proposal" to President Trump to address the crisis and called for a "war on drugs" that involves not punishment but treatment.
104.
Joe Manchin proposed the LifeBOAT Act, which would fund treatment.
105.
In January 2018, Joe Manchin was one of six Democrats who broke with their party to vote to confirm Trump's nominee for Health Secretary, Alex Azar.
106.
In January 2019, Joe Manchin was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis.
107.
Joe Manchin is opposed to the DREAM Act, and was absent from a 2010 vote on the bill.
108.
Joe Manchin opposed the Obama administration's lawsuit against Arizona over that state's immigration enforcement law.
109.
Joe Manchin voted against the McCain-Coons proposal to create a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants without funding for a border wall and he voted against a comprehensive immigration bill proposed by Susan Collins which gave a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers as well as funding for border security.
110.
Joe Manchin voted to withhold funding for "sanctuary cities" and in support of President Trump's proposal to give a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, build a border wall, and reduce legal immigration.
111.
In September 2019, Joe Manchin was the only Democrat on the Senate Appropriations panel to vote for a $71 billion homeland security measure that granted Trump the $5 billion he had previously requested to build roughly 200 miles of fencing along the US-Mexico border.
112.
Joe Manchin expressed openness to paying for the bill by raising taxes on corporations and wealthy people, despite the fact that this would likely eliminate any possible bipartisan support.
113.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded that Joe Manchin's comments "represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the president and the senator's colleagues in the House and Senate".
114.
Also in December 2021, Joe Manchin expressed displeasure with the tactics Democrats used to pressure him into supporting the Build Back Better Act.
115.
Joe Manchin expressed his support for the Inflation Reduction Act on July 27,2022.
116.
In February 2023, Politico reported that Joe Manchin was "livid" over how the Biden administration was implementing the Inflation Reduction Act.
117.
Joe Manchin was especially concerned about "a delay in new guidelines on who gets the law's generous electric vehicle tax credits".
118.
On December 9,2010, Joe Manchin was the sole Democrat to vote against cloture for the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act, which contained a provision to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
119.
In March 2021, Joe Manchin was the only Democrat to vote for a failed amendment to rescind funding from public schools that allow transgender youth to participate in the sporting teams of their gender identity.
120.
In June 2011, Joe Manchin joined Senator Chuck Schumer in seeking a crackdown on Bitcoin currency transactions, saying that they facilitated illegal drug trade transactions.
121.
In May 2012, in an effort to reduce prescription drug abuse, Joe Manchin successfully proposed an amendment to the Food and Drug Administration reauthorization bill to reclassify hydrocodone as a Schedule II controlled substance.
122.
In 2018, Joe Manchin secured a provision in the Opioid Crisis Response Act that ensured additional opioid funding for West Virginia after the bill had previously granted funding based on states' overall opioid overdose death counts as opposed to the overdose death rate.
123.
In July 2019, Joe Manchin issued a release in which he called for a $1.4 billion settlement from Reckitt Benckiser Group to be used for both programs and resources that would address the opioid epidemic.
124.
Joe Manchin sponsored the National Yellow Dot Act to create a voluntary program that would alert emergency services personnel responding to car accidents of the availability of personal and medical information on the car's owner.
125.
In 2018, Joe Manchin was one of 17 Democrats to break with their party and vote with Republicans to ease the Dodd-Frank banking rules.
126.
Joe Manchin opposed Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
127.
In March 2019, Joe Manchin was a cosponsor of a bipartisan bill to undo a drafting error in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that mandated stores and restaurants to have to write off the costs of renovations over the course of 39 years via authorizing businesses to immediately deduct the entirety of costs of renovations.
128.
On February 2,2021, Joe Manchin announced his opposition to an increase from $7.25 to $15 per hour in the federal minimum wage, but said he was open to a smaller increase, perhaps to $11, and higher for parts of the country with a higher cost of living, like Massachusetts, New York, and California.
129.
In January 2019, Joe Manchin was one of five senators to cosponsor the VA Provider Accountability Act, a bipartisan bill meant to amend Title 38 of the United States Code to authorize the under secretary of health to report "major adverse personnel actions" related to certain health care employees at the National Practitioner Data Bank along with applicable state licensing boards.
130.
On June 6,2021, in an op-ed published in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Joe Manchin expressed his opposition to the For the People Act due to its lack of bipartisan support.
131.
Shortly thereafter, several Democratic lawmakers accused Joe Manchin of supporting Jim Crow laws by opposing the For the People Act, a signature piece of legislation of the Democratic majority, aiming to expand voting rights, among other provisions.
132.
From 2021 until he became an Independent in 2024, Joe Manchin was the only Democrat holding congressional or statewide partisan office in West Virginia.
133.
Joe Manchin's legacy has been described as complicated, including by Joe Manchin himself.
134.
Senator Jon Tester said, "Joe Manchin is going to be remembered as somebody who has been difficult to work with, but got a lot of things done".
135.
Journalist Burgess Everett said Joe Manchin's "name is synonymous with any single member of Congress who's willing to hold up an entire party's agenda".
136.
Joe Manchin is a member of the National Rifle Association and a licensed pilot.
137.
Joe Manchin married Gayle Heather Conelly on August 5,1967.
138.
In December 2012, Joe Manchin voiced his displeasure with MTV's new reality show Buckwild, which was set in his home state's capital of Charleston.
139.
Joe Manchin asked the network's president to cancel the show, contending that it depicted West Virginia in a negative, unrealistic fashion.
140.
John Joe Manchin II withdrew the suit on June 30,2015.