Joe Manchin Biography

Joseph “Joe” Manchin III was born on August 24, 1947, in the small coal mining town Farmington in West Virginia, United States, as the second of five children of Mary and John Manchin. He is of Italian descent from his father’s side and his family name “Manchin” was derived from the Italian name "Mancini", while his maternal grandparents were Czechoslovak immigrants.

His father, a carpet and furniture store owner, and his grandfather Joseph Manchin, who owned a grocery store, both served as Farmington's mayor. His uncle A.J. Manchin was also a Democratic politician who was a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates and later became the West Virginia Secretary of State and Treasurer.

After completing his school graduation from Farmington High School in 1965, he went to West Virginia University on a football scholarship. However, his football aspirations were cut short by an injury during practice, but he completed his bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1970.

Joe Manchin initially began working in his family business but later established Enersystems, a waste coal brokerage company based in Fairmont, West Virginia, in 1988. He served as the president of the company until he joined politics in 2000, following which the daily operations of the company were handled by his son Joe Manchin IV.

According to his annual financial disclosures following his election to the U.S. Senate in 2010, he has listed AA Properties as a non-public asset. Furthermore, he has invested in Emerald Coast Realty, which owns a La Quinta hotel in Elkview, West Virginia.

Joe Manchin began his political career by successfully running for the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1982, at the age of 35, and held that position for four years. In 1986, he was elected to the West Virginia Senate, where he served until 1996.

In 1996, he lost the Democratic primary election for governor to Charlotte Pritt despite backing from businesses, the NRA and West Virginians for Life. He was later elected Secretary of State of West Virginia in 2000.

After he challenged incumbent Democratic Governor Bob Wise in the 2004 Democratic primary, the latter decided not to seek re-election following a scandal and Manchin won the primary and the general election by large margins.

He took office in January 2005 and one year later the Sago Mine disaster struck in Upshur County, West Virginia, when he mistakenly confirmed that 12 miners had survived, while only one actually survived.

Following more accidental casualties, he later stopped all coal production in West Virginia pending safety checks and was able to reach 74% approval rating, the most for any governor in the country, by November 2006. As such, he easily won the re-election in 2008 against Republican Russ Weeks with 69.77% of the vote and also won every county.

Following Senator Robert Byrd’s death, Joe Manchin, who had previously confirmed not seeking the position, appointed his legal adviser Carte Goodwin instead, but later announced his candidacy for the 2010 special election to complete Byrd’s term. He defeated former Democratic Congressman and former West Virginia Secretary of State Ken Hechler in primary before winning against Republican businessman John Raese with 53% vote and assumed office as Senator in November 2010.

He decided to seek re-election to a full term in 2012 even though he did not endorse re-election bid of Democratic President Barack Obama due to policy differences. He was the heavily favoured candidate and went on to defeat Republican opponent John Raese and Mountain Party candidate Bob Henry Baber by securing 61% of the vote.

During the 2018 re-election, he faced Paula Jean Swearengin, an activist and coal miner's daughter, in the democratic primary and was accused of voting with Republicans and supporting Trump's policies. He defeated Swearengin securing 70% of the vote and went on to narrowly defeat Republican opponent and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey by 49.57%-46.26% in the Senate election.

Joe Manchin, known as the most conservative Democrat who often votes on Republican lines, is expected to run for reelection to a third full-term in 2024, and enjoyed a lead in the polls up until early 2022. However, his popularity saw a sharp double-digit decline after he played a pivotal role in President Joe Biden’s major domestic policy legislations affecting inflation, climate change, health care and tax measure

Throughout his political career, Joe Manchin has been known for opposing key policies of his own party while supporting various policies by the Republican Party, which even invited him to join its ranks in 2021. He opposed Barack Obama's energy policies, voted against cloture for the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, voted for removing federal funding for Planned Parenthood, but supported Trump's border wall and immigration policies.

Joe Manchin has been married to educator and government official Gayle Conelly for over five decades since 1967 and they are settled in Fairmont, West Virginia. They have three children: Heather Manchin Bresch, Joseph IV, and Brooke, among whom the first was the chief executive officer of Netherlands-based pharmaceutical company Mylan.

One of his brothers, John Manchin II, filed a lawsuit in July 2014 suing him and their other brother Roch Manchin, over a $1.7 million loan by the two to run a family-owned carpet business. He claimed non-payment of the whole loan and evading tactics by the defendants, but later withdrew the suit in June 2015.