‘No Labels’ Group to Launch Third-Party Presidential Campaign

On Friday, the left-wing group “No Labels” announced that it still intends to run a candidate for President of the United States in the November election.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the decision was made in a vote cast by No Labels’ 800 delegates during a virtual town hall meeting. The group confirmed that it would announce the process for fielding potential candidates on May 14th.

“I wasn’t sure exactly where No Labels delegates would land today, but they sent an unequivocal message: Keep going,” Mike Rawlings, chair of the group’s national convention, said in a statement after the vote. “They voted near unanimously to continue our 2024 project and to move immediately to identify candidates to serve on the unity presidential ticket.”

There has been speculation over who would be the group’s presidential nominee, as the organization’s leadership and support primarily consists of anti-Trump activists. No Labels has repeatedly said it would not run someone who could be a spoiler for Joe Biden that would help Trump’s campaign, but vowed to nominate someone if the general election shaped up to be a rematch between Trump and Biden. Following Nikki Haley’s withdrawal from the GOP primaries after Super Tuesday, Trump became the GOP’s presumptive nominee.

Speculation has focused on several candidates, most prominently outgoing Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), who announced last year that he will not seek re-election to the Senate this year. Manchin confirmed in February that he would not run with No Labels. There was also a heavy focus on former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R-Md.), but that speculation ended when Hogan announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate last month.

Other names have included outgoing Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah), as well as Haley, the former Ambassador to the United Nations, who was suggested by No Labels’ founding chairman Joe Lieberman. Haley herself dismissed any possibility of a third-party campaign.

The 2024 election appears increasingly likely to be a year of strong third-party candidacies. Most prominently, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of the Kennedy political dynasty announced that he would run for President as an independent candidate, after previously mounting a brief challenge to Biden in the Democratic Party primaries. Kennedy is currently polling at about 14% nationally – the highest percentage for a third-party candidate since Ross Perot in 1992 – and has qualified for access to the ballot in a handful of states, including the crucial swing states of Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia.

Other notable third-party candidates include professor Cornel West, who is mounting a far-left, progressive campaign, and Jill Stein, the two-time nominee for the Green Party, once again seeking the nomination of the second-largest third party in the country. Stein’s performance in three swing states in the 2016 election – Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania – may have ultimately been the factor that allowed President Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton that year, as Stein’s vote totals in all three states were larger than the margins between Trump and Clinton.

General election polling consistently shows that hypothetical matchups featuring Kennedy and West benefit Trump, giving him larger popular vote margins than in head-to-head polls featuring only Trump and Biden.