By Gregory Korte, Hadriana Lowenkron and Jennifer Jacobs, Bloomberg News
WASHINGTON — No Labels, the centrist political group that aimed to disrupt the 2024 presidential campaign with a third-party candidate to compete with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, announced on Thursday that it wouldn’t put forward a candidate after all.
“Americans continue to be more receptive to an independent presidential campaign and more eager for uniting national leadership than ever before,” No Labels founder Nancy Jacobson stated. “But No Labels has always stated that we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a believable path to winning the White House. Since no such candidates emerged, the responsible course of action is for us to step back.”
The decision not to present a presidential ticket is a boost for Democrats who had expressed concern that a centrist candidate would thwart Biden’s chances of winning.
The abandoned presidential endeavor comes after weeks of speculation about who would be on the ticket, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who resigned from the No Labels board and has since launched a U.S. Senate candidacy.
It also comes after the death of the organization’s co-founder, former Sen. Joe Lieberman, last week.
No Labels had seriously considered a few candidates in recent weeks, including billionaire Bill Haslam, the former Tennessee governor, and Geoff Duncan, the former lieutenant governor of Georgia, according to one person familiar with the conversations.
The group, which had primarily focused on promoting bipartisan policy in Congress during its 14-year history, had spent months preparing for a third-party presidential attempt. No Labels referred to its plan as an “insurance policy” in case of a Biden-Trump rematch that would pit two historically unpopular candidates against each other.
Voters could still have other third-party options to consider, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jill Stein and Cornel West. However, a No Labels-supported candidate would have inherited advantages that most similar efforts lack — including access to the ballot in 19 states.
A political action committee called New Leaders ’24 launched with the goal of raising $300 million to support a candidate endorsed by No Labels, while another super PAC affiliated with the group, No Labels 2024, was raising funds to finance a potential nominating convention. Federal Election Commission records indicate that No Labels 2024 had $1.9 million cash on hand at the end of 2023.
A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll released late last year found that desire for an independent candidate in seven swing states was strongest among key Democratic constituencies such as young people and urban residents, demographics that are crucial to Biden reassembling his electoral coalition.
Sixteen percent of Biden’s 2020 voters claim they are attracted to third-party options, compared to 11% of Trump’s supporters, according to the poll.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
