Murkowski: If 2024 match-up is between Biden, Trump then ‘I would go with Joe Manchin’

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Thursday if the 2024 presidential match-up is between President Biden and former President Trump, she would go with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who so far has not launched a presidential bid.

“If it’s a match-up between Biden and Trump, I know exactly where I’d go. I would go with Joe Manchin,” Murkowski said in an interview with PBS’s Margaret Hoover on “Firing Line.” “I am one who doesn’t like to use my vote for the lesser of two evils. I want to be proactive in who I think could do the job.”

Murkowski said people are hungry for an independent or someone who’s “offering something in the middle,” noting she is “very close” with Manchin.

Manchin appeared earlier this week at a town hall in New Hampshire that was sponsored by political organization No Labels, sparking conversation of a possible third-party bid for the West Virginia senator.

Some Democratic senators have expressed concern that a third-party presidential run could take votes away from Biden and boost Trump.

A poll from Monmouth University found Biden could still beat Trump, even if Manchin launches a third-party bid.

“I have no qualms, no qualms providing my endorsement to a Democrat who I think has been not only extraordinarily helpful to me and Alaskan issues, but in the Senate as well,” Murkowski said, pointing to her and Manchin’s past endorsements of one another.

The Alaska senator said her constituents have asked her to talk Manchin into running, to which she said, “That’s not for me to do.” She said she does think about what a third party could “bring to the equation.”

“If we go into a 2024 scenario, where it’s basically a redo of 2020 between Trump and Biden, what does that say? That we have nobody better than these two?” Murkowski said.

Manchin is also up for reelection in 2024, meaning his key Senate seat and potentially the majority in the chamber could go to the GOP if he runs for president instead.