During an appearance Monday on Fox News Channel, Joe Manchin said the Democratic Party's dramatic shift to the far left is what led him to register as an independent.
"I never thought that President Joe Biden was ever that far left," he noted. "But [after] this 2020 election, his staff took him so far left, I said, 'Mr. President, they're taking you down the primrose path you can't return from.' And it just got worse and worse and worse."
Manchin said the modern progressive wing of the Democratic Party ought to start their own party.
"If the leadership of the Democratic Party, both Hakeem [Jeffries] and Chuck [Schumer], aren't tough about what they want and how they're going to run the party, then they're going to get run out of the party," the former Democrat warned.
Many states do not record party affiliation, which means there is no official nationwide percentage of registered independents. In the states that do track party registration, only about 28% of registered voters are registered as independents or unaffiliated.
However, according to Gallup's 2025 survey, a record 45% of U.S. adults identified as independents. That is compared with 27% identifying as Democrats and 27% as Republicans.
Manchin thinks they will be a big factor in future elections.
"We need to gather our own thoughts and our own strength and start voting where independents have support," Manchin implored. "And when you get to Washington, they can bring common sense back and help both parties get back to the middle."
Gallup also found that although more Americans now identify as independents than ever before, most independents still lean toward one of the two major parties. Twenty percent of all U.S. adults are independents who lean Democratic, fifteen percent are independents who lean Republican, and only 10% are independents with no partisan lean at all.
Manchin said the Democratic Party he grew up knowing was hardworking, fiscally responsible, and socially compassionate, and he thinks that is how "most people" still are.
So even though Gallup's 2025 survey found Democratic leaners outnumbered Republican leaners among independents, Manchin told Fox News, "If the Democrats think they can go left and get the majority, they're wrong. That will not happen."
He thinks what happened in his state between 2000 and 2016, when West Virginia completely flipped from a reliable Democratic stronghold to a deeply conservative Republican state, is evidence of that.
