Article snippet: Senator Joe Manchin III, a Democrat, announced Tuesday that he will stay in the Senate and not run for governor in West Virginia, passing on a challenge to a Republican incumbent strongly backed by President Trump. Manchin, 72, served as governor from 2005 to 2010, and last year considered retiring from the Senate before reluctantly agreeing to seek reelection in a state that Trump carried handily in the 2016 presidential race. He was narrowly reelected to a six-year term. Manchin has sought to reach across the aisle to work with Republicans on legislation, including on background checks for gun purchasers. He was the only Democrat to break from his party in voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court last year. West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, a billionaire businessman, was elected in 2016 as a Democrat. Less than a year later, he announced at a Trump rally in his state that he was switching parties. He has since declared that he and Trump are ‘‘bound at the hip.’’ Washington Post From the White House lawn on Sunday, President Trump promised a package of laws to address the scourge of gun violence. But in advertisements that went up on Facebook Monday, the president delivered a pointed warning about the prospects of reforming the nation’s gun laws, telling a select group of voters that Democrats were intent on repealing the Second Amendment and asking them to sign their names to a petition to defend gun rights. ‘‘Democrats have finally admitted wh... Link to the full article to read more