Manchin to embark on book tour for memoir detailing his centrist political career

The book, according to Manchin, will “pull back the curtain on the thought process behind [his] decisions and have candid conversations about how we fix what’s broken, find compromise and put country before party.�

Manchin will kick off the tour at West Virginia University — the only stop scheduled in his home state — on Sept. 12. Hoppy Kercheval, a longtime West Virginia political commentator and former host of MetroNews Talkline, will moderate a discussion with Manchin centered around his memoir.

Other stops on the tour will have conversations moderated by Brad Paisley, Gayle King, David Axelrod and David Rubenstein.

A life in politics

Manchin’s political career started in the 1980s, when he sat in the West Virginia House of Delegates for two terms before being elected to the state Senate. In 2001, he was elected to serve as the Secretary of State. In 2005, he won his bid for governor of West Virginia, serving one term before winning a special election to fill the late Robert C. Byrd’s seat in the U.S. Senate.

Manchin served in the U.S. Senate for about 15 years, announcing in 2023 that he would not seek reelection when his term ended in January 2025. 

For nearly his entire career, Manchin served as a Democrat. During his tenure in the Senate, he was often a moderate voice, opting at times to vote with Republicans instead of his own party.

Throughout his last few years in the Senate, Manchin regularly criticized the increased partisanship that had taken hold of Congress, calling both the left and the right too extreme. 

Following 2020, with a split Senate, he became a key player in proceedings due to his centrist leanings making him a swing vote despite his membership in the Democratic Party. His moderate views often led to more left-leaning policies being watered down in order to guarantee passage.

In May 2024, with less than a year left in his final term, Manchin changed his party registration to unaffiliated, leaving West Virginia without any federally elected Democrats. At the time, rumors were swirling in Washington, D.C. and West Virginia that Manchin was considering a bid for president due to his work with “No Labels,� an organization that was looking to form an independent presidential ticket for the 2024 election. 

That summer, Manchin killed those rumors. He spent his final year in office on a tour to “unite the middle� of America to support centrist policies, candidates and ideals.

According to the book summary, “Dead Center� will combine “eyebrow-raising, never-before-told stories from inside the Senate and the White House with insights into how government does ― or doesn’t ― work.