Progressives and Democrats who are lashing out at Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., run the risk of pushing him out of their party entirely and tilting the majority towards Republicans, according to Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume.
"I don't know what these Democrats think they are doing when they are attacking him like that," Hume told "Special Report" host Bret Baier on Monday. "There is one way they could lose that seat if they keep after him. He could simply switch party to Republican."
PROGRESSIVES SCOLD MANCHIN AFTER HE OPPOSES ELECTION BILL, ENDING FILIBUSTER
The West Virginia Democrat faced ire from members of his own party on Monday over an op-ed he wrote where he vowed to oppose the Democrats' sweeping elections bill and sided with his Republican colleagues over keeping the legislative filibuster in the Senate.
Manchin's opposition to the "For the People Act" provoked outrage from progressive Democrats who hoped to push through an array of progressive legislation, including the elections bill, without the support of Senate Republicans. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y. publicly criticized Manchin on Twitter.
But, as Hume noted, Machin's logic makes "political sense" if he intends on keeping the Senate majority.
"He comes from a state that is one of the reddest in the country—Joe Biden saw Donald Trump get, roughly 70% of the vote in West Virginia and so Manchin has to think about surviving in a state that's red," Hume said. "So what he is doing is makes all kinds of political sense for him and should make political sense for the Democrats because if they were to lose that seat, they would lose that majority."
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Hume noted that if Democrats lost Manchin's tie-breaking vote, he would still remain in the Senate majority but with Republicans taking control of the chamber.
"He would lose nothing it seems to me except it would probably get the Democrats off his back," Hume said.