'No Labels' third-party presidential bid draws interest, worries before 2024
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) last week headlined a "Common Sense" Town Hall in New Hampshire sponsored by the bipartisan group No Labels. Credit: The Washington Post via Getty Images
WASHINGTON — With the potential for a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump appearing more likely heading into 2024, a bipartisan group called No Labels has been drawing more attention to its bid to run a third-party centrist candidate.
The group, backed by a bipartisan mix of prominent moderates, said at a New Hampshire launch event last Monday it would run a candidate if Trump and Biden appeared poised to clinch the nominations after the March 5 Super Tuesday primaries in more than a dozen states.
Pointing to national polls that show voters largely are underwhelmed by the prospect of a rematch, the group’s leaders say running a third-party candidate would amount to an “insurance policy” to force both major parties to reconsider their nominees.
Democrats contend No Labels has no viable path to winning a national election and could hand it to Trump, by drawing moderate voters away from Biden in critical swing states. Lawmakers such as Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have conceded the group could be a spoiler in favor of Trump.
No Labels officials have said they will not run a candidate if someone other than Trump emerges as the GOP nominee. But the group’s reported ties to some GOP megadonors have raised concerns among Democrats who view the effort as a way to weaken Biden.
“It is the illusion of a choice without the reality of a choice,” said former Long Island Rep. Thomas Downey, a Democrat who belongs to the bipartisan group Citizens to Save our Republic, which is pushing back against the No Labels effort.
Downey, who represented a Suffolk County house district from 1975 to 1993 and lives in Vermont, said the No Labels effort lacks the transparency of the primary voting system, in which voters decide their party nominee.
“They claim, ‘Well, you know, people don't like Biden, they don't like Trump, so let's offer them the middle road alternative,’" Downey said.
"The fact is that both political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, have a process whereby candidates are chosen,” Downey said. “No Labels doesn't have a plan for choosing candidates. It appears as though they'll be picking somebody at a Georgetown salon, which is not the way a candidate should be picked.”
No Labels was started 10 years ago in Washington, D.C., focused on fostering bipartisanship in Congress. It led the push to form the House Problem Solvers Caucus in 2017, a bipartisan group that meets regularly to hash out policy differences between both sides. Caucus members include Republican Reps. Andrew Garbarino of Bayport, Anthony D’Esposito of Island Park and Nick LaLota of Amityville. Former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) once served as a vice co-chair of the caucus.
No Labels has faced increased scrutiny since announcing plans in March to get on the ballot of every state with an alternative presidential candidate.
The group is incorporated as a social welfare organization, allowing it to skirt federal reporting requirements for traditional political parties and political action committees. It has not disclosed its donors. But an investigation in June by the news site Politico, citing former employees of the organization, identified prominent GOP political donors such as billionaire real estate developer Harlan Crow, who paid for lavish trips for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
The group’s chief executive, Nancy Jacobson, a former fundraiser for Democrats Bill and Hillary Clinton, said, “There’s nothing nefarious going on here,” when pressed by NBC News in an interview last Tuesday about No Labels' funding sources.
Former Republican North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a national co-chair of No Labels, said at the New Hampshire event the group’s push to run a third-party candidate was an “insurance policy.”
McCrory continued: “We hope we won’t have to do it, but the fact of the matter is … the American people are saying loud and clear … we can do better.”
Biden, 80, so far faces two-long shot Democratic challengers: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an attorney and a son of the late U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who has faced criticism for his anti-vaccination stances, and Marianne Williamson, a self-help author who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2020.
Trump, 77, leads the pack of Republican candidates such as his former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by an average of 31 percentage points, according to a recent analysis by the poll tracking website Real Clear Politics. Trump is facing multiple legal battles, including in state court in Manhattan for allegedly trying to conceal hush-money payments during the 2016 election, and a 37-count federal indictment over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left office.
Headlining the No Labels event in New Hampshire last week were Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has derailed Biden administration proposals by withholding his support in the narrowly divided Senate, and former Republican Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.
Their appearance came as national polls showed significant voter disenchantment with the prospect of a Biden/Trump rematch. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted June 10-13 found 59% of 1,500 adults surveyed opposed the idea of Biden seeking reelection, and 56% of respondents opposed Trump seeking a second term. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
Manchin and Huntsman didn't directly answer when asked if they were potential candidates for a No Labels presidential ticket.
“We're here to make sure that the American people have an option. And the option is, can you move the political parties off their respective sides? They've gone too far right and too far left," Manchin said. “That can't be done unless they're threatened.”
Huntsman, who served as U.S. ambassador to China under Democratic President Barack Obama and ambassador to Russia under Trump, said: “The common-sense majority in America has no voice right now.”
Biden and Trump supporters contend the No Labels effort will have little effect on how the major-party campaigns operate.
Former Long Island Rep. Steve Israel, a Democrat who advised Biden’s 2020 campaign, said No Labels faces a steep climb in getting the 270 Electoral College votes needed to secure the presidency.
“The debate has been largely misguided,” Israel said. “It doesn’t matter whether a No Labels candidacy takes votes away from President Biden or Donald Trump. What matters is whether there’s 270 electoral votes for a No Labels candidate, and I just don’t see it.”
John Jay LaValle, a former Suffolk County Republican chairman who served as a Trump campaign surrogate in 2016 and 2020, said No Labels' centrist platform “sounds nice, and it sounds interesting, but it’s not realistic.”
“People want to know where you stand,” LaValle said. “The last thing you want to do is give a politician the ability to have no label and to just flip on issues as they see fit … we live in a very partisan world based on some vast differences in core belief about issues like border security, our economy, international affairs … Voters want to know exactly where the candidates stand on these issues … They don’t want some generic no label response.”
Dan Lee, a professor of political science at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas who has researched the impact of third parties in U.S. elections, said their candidates typically have sought to “influence” the dialogue among major party candidates.
“A big part of their goal is just to hold the major parties accountable, not necessarily for them to actually become a new major party and start winning elections,” Lee said.
WASHINGTON — With the potential for a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump appearing more likely heading into 2024, a bipartisan group called No Labels has been drawing more attention to its bid to run a third-party centrist candidate.
The group, backed by a bipartisan mix of prominent moderates, said at a New Hampshire launch event last Monday it would run a candidate if Trump and Biden appeared poised to clinch the nominations after the March 5 Super Tuesday primaries in more than a dozen states.
Pointing to national polls that show voters largely are underwhelmed by the prospect of a rematch, the group’s leaders say running a third-party candidate would amount to an “insurance policy” to force both major parties to reconsider their nominees.
Democrats contend No Labels has no viable path to winning a national election and could hand it to Trump, by drawing moderate voters away from Biden in critical swing states. Lawmakers such as Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have conceded the group could be a spoiler in favor of Trump.
WHAT TO KNOW
- A bipartisan group called No Labels has been drawing increased attention to its bid to run a third-party centrist candidate.
- The group says they will run a candidate if Donald Trump and Joe Biden appear to be the nominees in 2024.
- Democrats contend the group could hand the election to Trump by siphoning support for Biden from moderate voters in critical swing states.
No Labels officials have said they will not run a candidate if someone other than Trump emerges as the GOP nominee. But the group’s reported ties to some GOP megadonors have raised concerns among Democrats who view the effort as a way to weaken Biden.
“It is the illusion of a choice without the reality of a choice,” said former Long Island Rep. Thomas Downey, a Democrat who belongs to the bipartisan group Citizens to Save our Republic, which is pushing back against the No Labels effort.
Downey, who represented a Suffolk County house district from 1975 to 1993 and lives in Vermont, said the No Labels effort lacks the transparency of the primary voting system, in which voters decide their party nominee.
“They claim, ‘Well, you know, people don't like Biden, they don't like Trump, so let's offer them the middle road alternative,’" Downey said.
"The fact is that both political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, have a process whereby candidates are chosen,” Downey said. “No Labels doesn't have a plan for choosing candidates. It appears as though they'll be picking somebody at a Georgetown salon, which is not the way a candidate should be picked.”
No Labels origin
No Labels was started 10 years ago in Washington, D.C., focused on fostering bipartisanship in Congress. It led the push to form the House Problem Solvers Caucus in 2017, a bipartisan group that meets regularly to hash out policy differences between both sides. Caucus members include Republican Reps. Andrew Garbarino of Bayport, Anthony D’Esposito of Island Park and Nick LaLota of Amityville. Former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) once served as a vice co-chair of the caucus.
No Labels has faced increased scrutiny since announcing plans in March to get on the ballot of every state with an alternative presidential candidate.
The group is incorporated as a social welfare organization, allowing it to skirt federal reporting requirements for traditional political parties and political action committees. It has not disclosed its donors. But an investigation in June by the news site Politico, citing former employees of the organization, identified prominent GOP political donors such as billionaire real estate developer Harlan Crow, who paid for lavish trips for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
The group’s chief executive, Nancy Jacobson, a former fundraiser for Democrats Bill and Hillary Clinton, said, “There’s nothing nefarious going on here,” when pressed by NBC News in an interview last Tuesday about No Labels' funding sources.
Former Republican North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a national co-chair of No Labels, said at the New Hampshire event the group’s push to run a third-party candidate was an “insurance policy.”
McCrory continued: “We hope we won’t have to do it, but the fact of the matter is … the American people are saying loud and clear … we can do better.”
Biden, 80, so far faces two-long shot Democratic challengers: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an attorney and a son of the late U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who has faced criticism for his anti-vaccination stances, and Marianne Williamson, a self-help author who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2020.
Trump, 77, leads the pack of Republican candidates such as his former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by an average of 31 percentage points, according to a recent analysis by the poll tracking website Real Clear Politics. Trump is facing multiple legal battles, including in state court in Manhattan for allegedly trying to conceal hush-money payments during the 2016 election, and a 37-count federal indictment over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left office.
Reading the polls
Headlining the No Labels event in New Hampshire last week were Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has derailed Biden administration proposals by withholding his support in the narrowly divided Senate, and former Republican Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.
Their appearance came as national polls showed significant voter disenchantment with the prospect of a Biden/Trump rematch. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted June 10-13 found 59% of 1,500 adults surveyed opposed the idea of Biden seeking reelection, and 56% of respondents opposed Trump seeking a second term. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
Manchin and Huntsman didn't directly answer when asked if they were potential candidates for a No Labels presidential ticket.
“We're here to make sure that the American people have an option. And the option is, can you move the political parties off their respective sides? They've gone too far right and too far left," Manchin said. “That can't be done unless they're threatened.”
Huntsman, who served as U.S. ambassador to China under Democratic President Barack Obama and ambassador to Russia under Trump, said: “The common-sense majority in America has no voice right now.”
Biden and Trump supporters contend the No Labels effort will have little effect on how the major-party campaigns operate.
Former Long Island Rep. Steve Israel, a Democrat who advised Biden’s 2020 campaign, said No Labels faces a steep climb in getting the 270 Electoral College votes needed to secure the presidency.
“The debate has been largely misguided,” Israel said. “It doesn’t matter whether a No Labels candidacy takes votes away from President Biden or Donald Trump. What matters is whether there’s 270 electoral votes for a No Labels candidate, and I just don’t see it.”
John Jay LaValle, a former Suffolk County Republican chairman who served as a Trump campaign surrogate in 2016 and 2020, said No Labels' centrist platform “sounds nice, and it sounds interesting, but it’s not realistic.”
“People want to know where you stand,” LaValle said. “The last thing you want to do is give a politician the ability to have no label and to just flip on issues as they see fit … we live in a very partisan world based on some vast differences in core belief about issues like border security, our economy, international affairs … Voters want to know exactly where the candidates stand on these issues … They don’t want some generic no label response.”
Dan Lee, a professor of political science at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas who has researched the impact of third parties in U.S. elections, said their candidates typically have sought to “influence” the dialogue among major party candidates.
“A big part of their goal is just to hold the major parties accountable, not necessarily for them to actually become a new major party and start winning elections,” Lee said.
Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.
