I would not be surprised to see Manchin drop the "D" for an "I" in regard to party designation sometime in the next couple months. What does he have to lose? He is off doing other things now so if he loses committee assignments that just frees him up for his exploratory" activities. He is not worried about how it plays with the dems back home because he is not running there again. And it would begin the process of his beginning to self-identify as a third party type or at least a severing from the dems. That would put the dems on edge bigtime as they try to figure out whether that is foreplay to an independent run. And if it puts the dems on edge, how can that be a bad thing even if he does not run?