Joe Manchin Just Handed Susan Collins the Kiss of Death

Endorsements are supposed to help. This one reads like a hostage note.

Monday, on CNBC, retired West Virginia Democrat-turned-independent Joe Manchin went on television and (cite index="1">endorsed Republican Sen. Susan Collins, praising her as the "soul of the Senate." He made his pitch plain: (cite index="2">"You lose the Susan Collinses of the Senate, you're losing the soul of the Senate," a person, he said, who is "always in the trenches." Collins thanked her "dear friend." Cue the confetti.

Here is the problem. Manchin is the human embodiment of the centrist bipartisanship voters have spent the better part of a decade souring on, and he backed Collins over Democrat Troy Jackson precisely because he refuses to abide the party's left flank. (cite index="2">Manchin gave his nod to Collins over Jackson, whom he cast as a progressive who supports "Medicare for All" and dismantling ICE. An endorsement from a man who left his own party is not a lifeline to a Republican bleeding in a blue state. It is a mirror.

And the numbers in that mirror are ugly. (cite index="3">In a CNN poll conducted Aug. 31 to Sept. 6, Jackson led Collins 48 percent to 45 percent among 880 likely voters, a razor-thin margin inside the 3.7-point error bar. That is not an outlier. (cite index="4">An Abacus Data poll earlier in September had Jackson up 9 among likely voters; a Fox News poll had him up 2; a University of New Hampshire survey had him up 3. Call it a losing streak with a very consistent box score.

The deeper wound is personal. (cite index="5">Collins carried just 41 percent favorability among likely voters in the CNN poll, with more than half viewing her unfavorably and only 7 percent holding no opinion at all. Nearly three decades in office, and the state has made up its mind about her. When only 7 percent of voters need more information about you, an ex-senator's TV shout-out is not going to move the needle.

What is moving voters is the Brett Kavanaugh vote, the one Collins still refuses to walk back. (cite index="6">The Kavanaugh emphasis is the same play Democrats ran in the failed 2020 effort to unseat her, and it lands in a state where women make up the majority of voters and the median age is 44.8 years. Older women, the exact coalition Collins built her career on, are the ones the challenger is peeling off.

Collins knows the ground is soft. That is why she skipped JD Vance and broke with Trump on the Canada tariffs. (cite index="7">She told reporters a scheduling conflict kept her from joining the vice president in Brewer, the second Vance stop in Maine she has ducked, even as she opposes Trump's 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods. Distance from Trump, distance from Vance, and now an embrace from Joe Manchin. That is not a coalition. That is a candidate trying to be everywhere and standing nowhere.

Collins will point out, correctly, that she trailed Sara Gideon in the 2020 polls and won by nine. (cite index="3">Her campaign invokes that result whenever new numbers surface, a reminder that pollsters have underestimated her crossover support before. Maybe the ghost of 2020 saves her again. But when your closing argument is a blessing from the guy voters most associate with the mushy middle they've grown to resent, the soul of the Senate might want to check its pulse. MUCK YOU!