The political positions of Joe Manchin encompass the established political, social, cultural, and economic positions taken by Joe Manchin, a former United States senator from West Virginia. Manchin's positions are reflected in his voting records, public speeches, personal statements, and interviews. A member of the Democratic Party until 2024 when he registered as an Independent, Manchin is characterized by his self-described moderate to conservative beliefs.

Political philosophy Manchin has been characterized as a moderate to conservative senator. His noted opposition to several Democratic Party positions have garnered him criticism from within the party, although he supported a majority of Democratic President Joe Biden's nominations and voted with him nearly 89% of the time. He has been referred to as a moderate Democrat by The Hill and Reuters. Politico and The Atlantic have labelled him as a conservative Democrat, a descriptor he himself has used.

Manchin's political philosophy is marked by bipartisanship. He has been described as a "blue dog", referring to a political philosophy of fiscally conservative Democrats that value working-class Americans. He was made an honorary co-chair of the centrist group No Labels.

On May 31, 2024, Manchin announced that he would leave the Democratic Party and file as an independent but would remain a member of the Senate Democratic Caucus. In the statement issued alongside his announcement filing as an independent, Manchin accused both the Republican and Democratic parties of "partisan extremism" and of "leaving West Virginia behind for partisan politics". He said that to "stay true to myself and remain committed to put country before party, I have decided to register as an independent with no party affiliation and continue to fight for America's sensible majority".

Political positions Abortion Manchin was raised as "pro-life". On August 3, 2015, he broke with Democratic leadership by voting in favor of a Republican-sponsored bill to terminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood both in the United States and globally. He has received the endorsement of Democrats for Life of America, a Democratic PAC that opposes abortion.

On March 30, 2017, Manchin voted against H.J.Res. 43, which allowed states to refuse to give Title X grant money to organizations for reasons unrelated to their ability to provide the services needed. Trump signed the bill. In April 2017, Manchin endorsed the continued funding of Planned Parenthood. In January 2018, Manchin joined two other Democrats and most Republicans by voting for a bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks. In June 2018, upon Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement, Manchin urged Trump not to appoint a judge who would seek to overturn Roe v. Wade but to instead choose a "centrist".

In 2019, Manchin was one of three Democrats to join all Republicans in voting for a bill to require that doctors care for infants born alive after a failed abortion.

In February 2022, Manchin was the only Democratic senator to vote against an abortion proposal, Women's Health Protection Act, that would have included limiting the states' ability to restrict abortion access, among other expansions.

In May 2022, Manchin said that he would again vote against his party's bill, the Women's Health Protection Act, which included codifying federal abortion rights as the Supreme Court appeared poised to overturn Roe. Manchin said the bill went too far and that he would support a narrower measure that still included codifying Roe. He was the only Senate Democrat to oppose the legislation.

Following Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), a landmark decision that held that the Constitution does not guarantee the right to an abortion and overturned Roe v. Wade (1973), Manchin expressed disappointment. He stated that Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, who helped deliver the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization and whom he nominated in 2017 and 2018, misled him. Although he expressed hope that Republicans would restore Roe v. Wade, he joined Republicans in opposing the Women's Health Protection Act.

Cryptocurrency Manchin opposed cryptocurrency, particularly Bitcoin. With Schumer, he sought a crackdown on Bitcoin in June 2011. In February 2014, following the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, he sent a letter to several economic figures—including then United States Department of the Treasury secretary Jack Lew, then Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, and then Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Jo White—asking for Bitcoin to be banned.

D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood In a November 10, 2020, interview, Manchin said that he did not "see the need for the D.C. statehood with the type of services that we're getting in D.C. right now" and that he was "not convinced that's the way to go." Of Puerto Rico statehood, Manchin said that he opposed it but was open to discussion. In a January 10, 2021 interview, he did not affirm his opposition to statehood for D.C. or Puerto Rico, saying only, "I don't know enough about that yet. I want to see the pros and cons. So I'm waiting to see all the facts". On April 30, 2021, Manchin came out against the D.C. Statehood bill that had passed the House of Representatives, suggesting that D.C. could instead be given statehood by constitutional amendment.

Disaster relief In May 2019, Manchin and John Cornyn introduced the Disaster Recovery Funding Act, a bill that would direct the Office of Management and Budget to release $16 billion for disaster relief funding within 60 days to nine states and two U.S. Territories. Manchin said that West Virginia had been awaiting funding for rebuilding for three years since a series of floods in June 2016. The bill died in committee.

In August 2019, Manchin announced $106 million in disaster relief funding for West Virginia.

Drugs In June 2011, Manchin joined Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in seeking a crackdown on Bitcoin currency transactions, saying that they facilitated illegal drug trade transactions. "The transactions leave no traditional bank transfer money trail for investigators to follow, and leave it hard to prove a package recipient knew in advance what was in a shipment," using an "'anonymizing network' known as Tor." One opinion website said the senators wanted "to disrupt the Silk Road drug website."

In May 2012, in an effort to reduce prescription drug abuse, Manchin successfully proposed an amendment to the Food and Drug Administration reauthorization bill to reclassify hydrocodone as a Schedule II controlled substance.

In 2018, Manchin secured a provision in the Opioid Crisis Response Act that ensured additional opioid funding for West Virginia after the bill had previously granted funding based on states' overall opioid overdose death counts as opposed to the overdose death rate. Manchin stated that the bill before his intervention was "basically using a blanket before when giving money" and added that the bill was incentivizing "companies to do the research to produce a product that gives the same relief as the opioid does, but is not (addictive)." The bill passed in the Senate in September.

In April 2019, Manchin cosponsored the Protecting Jessica Grubb's Legacy Act, legislation that authorized medical records of patients being treated for substance use disorder being shared among healthcare providers in case the patient provided the information. Cosponsor Shelley Moore Capito stated that the bill also prevented medical providers from unintentionally providing opioids to individuals in recovery.

In May 2019, when Manchin and Capito announced $600,000 of funding for West Virginia through the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program of the Department of Health and Human Services' Health Resources and Services Administration, Manchin stated that the opioid epidemic had devastated every community in West Virginia and that as a senator "fighting against this horrible epidemic and helping fellow West Virginians have always been my top priorities."

In July 2019, Manchin issued a release in which he called for a $1.4 billion settlement from Reckitt Benckiser Group to be used for both programs and resources that would address the opioid epidemic.

Economics In 2018, Manchin was one of 17 Democrats to break with their party and vote with Republicans to ease the Dodd-Frank banking rules.

Manchin opposed Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. He called it "a closed process" that "makes little impact in the paychecks of the people in his state." At the same time, he posited the bill contains "some good things... Initially people will benefit," although ultimately voting against it. In turn, NRSC spokesman Bob Salera stated that he had "turned his back and voted with Washington Democrats."

Manchin opposed the January 2018 government shutdown. The New York Times suggested that he helped end the shutdown by threatening not to run for reelection unless his fellow Democrats ended it.

In March 2019, Manchin was a cosponsor of a bipartisan bill to undo a drafting error in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that mandated stores and restaurants to have to write off the costs of renovations over the course of 39 years via authorizing businesses to immediately deduct the entirety of costs of renovations.

On February 2, 2021, Manchin announced his opposition to an increase from $7.25 to $15 per hour in the federal minimum wage, but said he was open to a smaller increase, perhaps to $11, and higher for parts of the country with a higher cost of living, like Massachusetts, New York, and California. He also argued that the minimum wage should be index-linked, saying, "Once it gets above $11 it should be indexed, so it never becomes a political football again." Along with seven other Democrats, Manchin opposed a $15 minimum wage proposal by Bernie Sanders as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and forced Democrats to limit extended unemployment benefits in the same bill.

By contrast, on April 19, 2021, Manchin telegraphed support for the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would dissolve state right-to-work laws, strengthen the right to organize and strike, and impose tougher restrictions on companies seeking to prevent unionization efforts.

Education In February 2019, Manchin said the collapse of an omnibus education reform proposal resulted from state lawmakers not laying the groundwork for broad support for the proposal. Manchin said, "You don't do major reform, policy changes, for the whole education system in a 60-day session without public hearings. There should have been a whole year of going out and speaking to the public." He stated his support for homeschooling and private schools as well as his opposition to funding "them with public dollars."

Energy and environment

Manchin sat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and supported a comprehensive, "all-of-the-above" energy approach that includes coal.

Manchin's first bill in the Senate dealt with what he called the EPA's overreach. After the EPA vetoed a previously approved permit for the Spruce Mine in Logan County, West Virginia, he offered the EPA Fair Play Act, which would "clarify and confirm the authority of the Environment Protection Agency to deny or restrict the use of defined areas as disposal sites for the discharge of dredged or filled material". Manchin said the bill would prevent the EPA from "changing its rules on businesses after permits have already been granted."