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From TPM Reader MW …
Re Josh’s post this morning, which includes these sentences:”There are a lot of people who are super mad at Joe Manchin. They say he’s a closet Republican. That’s not where I am. It’s more confusion because his points are contradictory.”
To give Manchin some (but not too much) benefit of the doubt, his contradictory statements may be a reasonably accurate reflection of the views of West Virginia voters. As we continually remind ourselves, in 2020 Trump won every county in West Virginia, and won the state by 38 points.These days that fact is usually brought up in reference to Manchin thinking he knows what he needs to do – and not do – to keep getting elected senator in WV. But those numbers might also be emblematic of a confusion that Manchin is playing (pandering?) to.