Jim Justice teases 2024 announcement on Manchin Senate seat: 'I’m not one to jerk folks round'

Gov. Jim Justice (R-WV) mentioned he is nearly made up his thoughts on whether or not to problem Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) for his Senate seat and teased that he’ll make an announcement “actual quickly.”

The Republican governor has been hinting at a Senate run for months, telling reporters in January he could be assured in his probabilities towards the centrist Democrat. A win for Justice could be a significant victory for Republicans as they search to achieve management of the Senate in 2024.

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“I’m not one to jerk folks round,” Justice advised journalist Julie Mason, including that he plans to decide someday within the subsequent two or three weeks. “We’re on the house stretch now. … I’ve just about made my resolution on what I’m going to do, and I assumed actually significantly about it, my household talked about it a bunch of instances. We’ll get to a call right here actual fast.”

Justice mentioned he wished to carry off on making a call till the state legislature concludes its present session, which is scheduled to finish on March 11. That timeline extends earlier feedback from the West Virginia governor, by which he mentioned he would make an announcement by the tip of February.

A race between Justice and Manchin would arrange a significant political battle between two of the state’s most outstanding politicians and will give Republicans a possibility to flip a vital seat within the 2024 cycle.

Manchin has not but indicated whether or not he'll run for reelection, retire, or search greater workplace. Nevertheless, ought to he run once more for his Senate seat, he's thought of one of the vital weak Democrats within the 2024 cycle, as he could be operating in a state that former President Donald Trump carried by 38.9 share factors in 2020.

Manchin has established a status as a centrist Democrat keen to work throughout the aisle and has drawn the ire of the Left for opposing extra progressive parts of the Democrats' agenda. Manchin held appreciable energy within the final Congress, by which the Senate was break up evenly and Democrats wanted to safe his assist for party-line votes.

In the meantime, Manchin has additionally left the door open to a White Home run in 2024, teasing that whereas he could possibly be the centrist candidate voters are on the lookout for, there are “numerous completely different gamers within the sport.”

Justice has beforehand expressed confidence he'd win a head-to-head matchup with Manchin, telling supporters in a city corridor assembly final month he’d invoice himself as “reliably Republican.”

"I am rock-solid as a Republican and being entrenched in these values," Justice mentioned, regardless of campaigning as a Democrat in 2016 and switching his occasion affiliation simply months into his time period. "Joe Manchin will likely be formidable, I am going to inform you that. If Joe and I are operating [against each other] in the present day, I win. … The folks of West Virginia actually imagine in me and belief me."