Sen. Joe Manchin III said Thursday that if he runs for president his first choice for running mate would be Sen. Mitt Romney.
The West Virginia Democrat was coy, as he has been for months, on whether he actually would make such a third-party or other bid for the White House. But much more direct about the No. 2 slot.
“Hypothetically, if I was picking my running mate, really who I would ask right now is Mitt Romney,” Mr. Manchin told the audience at a City Club of Cleveland breakfast, part of his “listening tour” on whether to make a run at the presidency.
But when asked whether such a conversation would become more than a hypothetical, Mr. Manchin continued to parry.
“Guys, listen, I’m not running for anything,” Mr. Manchin told one questioner. “I’m basically running to try to get people involved.”
But why NBC News asked him afterward, he replied that “third party run, everything is on the table.”
“Nothing’s off the table. I’m still evaluating all that. Super Tuesday pretty much would be a deadline that tells you where you are,” he continued, referring to the raft of March 5 primaries and caucuses.
Both Mr. Manchin and Mr. Romney declined to run for re-election in 2024, and each has decried the drift of his respective party in recent years.
They have been linked to and approached by groups such as No Labels about providing an alternative to a Biden-Trump rematch and have joked about running together.
NBC News, in its report on Mr. Manchin’s speech, noted that during Senate votes last week, Mr. Romney said with Mr. Manchin by him that “we are a ticket. There’s no question we are.”
Mr. Manchin agreed: “We are; he wants to be the not-stupid party.”
The Utah Republican, riffing off campaign calls that President Biden and former President Donald Trump are fading mentally, said that “we’re taking a cognitive test right now … we’ll let you know.”