The success or failure of Joe Biden\u2019s presidency was always going to hinge on the U.S. Senate. But the senator poised to determine that outcome isn\u2019t the one everybody expected.<\/p>\n
In the weeks after the election, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the presumed Republican majority leader, looked to be the critical figure, with the power and willingness to frustrate the new administration\u2019s lofty ambitions.<\/p>\n
But Democrats\u2019 upset victories in the twin Jan. 5 runoff elections in Georgia gave them a 50-50 split and control of the Senate, bumping McConnell into the minority and shifting the spotlight to someone else: Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia. As the Democrats\u2019 most conservative senator, Manchin represents the 50th vote on almost every issue. Little that Biden hopes to achieve will happen without his consent. \u201cManchin has always held some power,\u201d says Jennifer Duffy, an independent Senate analyst. \u201cNow he holds a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manchin\u2019s star turn in the Biden era has arrived sooner than expected. While Democrats\u2019 January victories opened up vast new opportunities, allowing them to confirm Biden\u2019s nominees and control what bills are brought to the floor, McConnell seized on a technicality to prevent them from taking over unless incoming Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to preserve the legislative filibuster, which gives McConnell and the GOP effective veto power over legislation. (McConnell may have been dethroned, but he\u2019s hardly cooperative.)<\/p>\n
Like so much in the Biden presidency, the resolution ultimately came down to West Virginia\u2019s senior senator. Although Schumer held firm, Manchin, who bills himself a traditionalist and one of the few Democrats unwilling to \u201cgo nuclear\u201d and eliminate the filibuster, recommitted to that position. \u201cI will not vote to change the filibuster,\u201d he told Politico<\/em> on Jan. 25.<\/p>\n Satisfied he\u2019d extracted public commitments from Manchin and another moderate Democrat, Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, McConnell declared victory. So did Schumer, who\u2019d rebuffed McConnell\u2019s demand. The resulting mood of angry perplexity and heightened tension is a preview of what the next two years will bring\u2014and illustrates why Manchin will be the central character in Washington\u2019s drama.<\/p>\n Although his filibuster vow may sound ironclad, both sides know the political calculus can shift quickly. It has before: In 2013, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada made a similar commitment, only to turn around ten months later and nuke the filibuster for most judicial nominees to surmount McConnell\u2019s obstruction. (McConnell returned serve in 2017, further scaling back the filibuster so Democrats couldn\u2019t block Neil Gorsuch from the Supreme Court.)<\/p>\n Many Democrats believe the true test of Manchin\u2019s convictions will only arrive when Republicans move to block a key piece of legislation that Manchin supports. \u201cI don\u2019t think Manchin will look favorably if McConnell keeps trying to throw monkey wrenches in everything we try to do,\u201d says Reid.<\/p>\n Aware that Manchin and Sinema\u2019s commitments may only be temporary, McConnell followed up his victory declaration with a bald threat to unleash \u201cimmediate chaos\u201d if Democrats later move forward: \u201cIf this majority went scorched earth, this body would grind to a halt like we\u2019ve never seen.\u201d<\/p>\n Manchin, 73, belongs to a political species that\u2019s nearly extinct: senators elected in states whose voters chose a president of the opposite party. Only three remain: Democrat Jon Tester of Montana, Republican Susan Collins of Maine, and Manchin, who was narrowly reelected in 2018 in a state that went 69%-30% for Donald Trump last November.<\/p>\n His endurance owes partly to familiarity\u2014he played football at West Virginia University, then served as a state legislator, state senator, secretary of state, and governor before being elected to the U.S. Senate\u2014and partly to his ability to buck Democrats often enough to reassure his Trump-friendly constituents. His 2010 Senate victory was powered by a memorable television ad in which the NRA-endorsed Manchin pulled out a rifle and shot Barack Obama\u2019s climate bill, vowing, \u201cI\u2019ll always defend West Virginia.\u201d<\/p>\n West Virginia\u2019s loyalty to him, however, has looked increasingly shaky. No state has swung harder from blue to red in the last quarter century. Following Trump\u2019s election, Manchin resisted entreaties to switch parties and passed up consideration to become Trump\u2019s energy secretary. \u201cWe made a huge effort to try to get him to flip to the GOP during the transition,\u201d says Steve Bannon, Trump\u2019s chief strategist at the time. Manchin held firm and eked out reelection as a Democrat in 2018, this time running an ad in which he shot a Republican lawsuit to repeal the Affordable Care Act, whose protections are popular in West Virginia.<\/p>\n In theory, doing away with the filibuster would be highly beneficial to his state, because it would shift the power to block most bills from the Republicans to Manchin and his fellow moderates. He could name his price, and Biden would pay it. \u201cHe has the potential to be kingmaker on pretty much every issue,\u201d says Adam Jentleson, a former aide to Reid and author of the new book Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s a massive leverage point.\u201d<\/p>\n But for a politician in Manchin\u2019s constant state of precarity, forced to answer to an electorate back home that just voted for the Republican presidential candidate by 39 points, the option of letting Republicans take the heat for killing bills that wouldn\u2019t be winners in West Virginia is not such a bad thing. \u201cOne of the worst things that could happen to Joe Manchin is to get exposed routinely on difficult votes,\u201d says Josh Huder, a senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. \u201cFilibusters offer political cover, enable blame-shifting, and protect him from scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n McConnell\u2019s gambit to jam Democrats, though it failed, succeeded in dragging Manchin into the center of public scrutiny. Right now, no question preoccupies Washington Democrats more than what he will ultimately decide to do.<\/p>\n There\u2019s little doubt about what he\u2019d prefer: to work across the aisle with moderates in both parties to craft legislation of modest ambition and cost. \u201cI\u2019m the most bipartisan member of Congress,\u201d he insisted to NBC News on Jan. 7. December\u2019s $900 billion Covid-19 relief package, hashed out by a bipartisan group of senators and House members tied to the Problem Solvers Caucus, was a model for the approach Manchin has always favored.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got together one night for a drink after the deal got passed and decided that we would continue to try to do this and make it an ongoing approach in the Biden era,\u201d says Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, a co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus. \u201cPhilosophically, that\u2019s what Joe believes is best. He has a proclivity toward bipartisan deals and keeping people together.\u201d<\/p>\n But maintaining a centrist, committee-driven approach to governing would necessarily limit\u2014perhaps drastically\u2014what Biden and Democrats could accomplish with their likely fleeting command of both the White House and Congress. McConnell\u2019s well-documented history of obstructing Democratic presidents and driving a wedge in their caucus makes the odds of a return to polite, productive centrism even more far-fetched.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why many Senate insiders expect Manchin to have to make tough choices about the filibuster, if not over the organizing resolution, then over future Democratic priorities that get bogged down from Republican obstruction. At some point, this will pit his desire to be seen as a traditionalist against his ability to deliver for West Virginia. Some Democrats who\u2019ve served with him are cautiously optimistic that he\u2019ll choose the latter.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Joe Manchin can be shown that getting rid of the filibuster will help get important legislation done, Joe will be amenable to getting it done,\u201d says Reid. \u201cThe time is not here now. But I think it could be before too long.\u201d<\/p>\n