Joe Manchin says he doesn’t intend to leave Democratic party for now

The centrist Democratic senator Joe Manchin does not intend to change his party affiliation – at least for now, he said on Sunday.

Manchin’s remarks on CBS’s Face the Nation came after fellow centrist senator Kyrsten Sinema sent shock waves through Congress by announcing that she was leaving the Democratic party and listing herself as an independent.

“I’ll let you know later what I decide to do, but right now, I have no intentions of changing anything,” Manchin told host Margaret Brennan, who had asked the West Virginian if there was any political advantage to becoming an independent like Sinema.

Sinema declared her defection right after the Democratic Georgia incumbent Raphael Warnock staved off a challenge for his seat on 6 December, a result that left the party thinking it had a clear two-seat majority in the Senate.

Like Sinema, Manchin has at times torpedoed the ambitions of the Joe Biden White House and other progressives, occasionally voting against his party’s interests in a chamber that has been split 50-50 during the last two years, with Vice-President Kamala Harris breaking ties in the Democrats’ favor. Notably, in July, the millionaire coal-trading company founder killed off sweeping climate change legislation staunchly opposed by Republicans before later helping push through a less ambitious bill.