Joe Manchin’s rule of influence in the Senate goes like this: “The tighter the margins, the more involvement you have.”
Manchin knows of which he speaks: He repeatedly leveraged Democrats’ 51-vote majority to become the bane of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s existence. But Republicans’ incoming 53-vote majority won’t be a tight enough margin for Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski’s votes to matter as much as Manchin’s did, or even matter at all.
Collins and Murkowski, the two most moderate Senate Republicans, are keenly aware of that reality. They’re also well aware that they’re not anywhere close to Donald Trump’s good side. (The president-elect has called Collins “atrocious” and Murkowski an even more cutting “very bad.”)