By Jake Zuckerman, Charleston Gazette-Mail
RACINE — It was a question on everyone’s minds.
“What’s Joe going to do?” the emcee for the United Mine Workers of America asked a staffer on stage who spoke in place of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.
The question was posed tongue-in-cheek, but the inquiry has lingered since Manchin first teased the concept in January of leaving the Senate to run for his old role of governor. This comes after winning re-election to a six-year term in 2018.
He has said previously he will lay out his position this fall. Anyone hoping the UMW’s annual Labor Day picnic would put to rest months of armchair punditry and runaway speculation regarding West Virginia’s most powerful Democrat likely left Monday’s rally unsatisfied.
However, a spread of other statewide Democrat hopefuls and legislative candidates took to the stump Monday to vie for the unions’ political support in 2020. ….
