Before he passed away Wednesday at 82, Joe Lieberman had described his effort to recruit a presidential candidate for a No Labels ticket as “daunting.” Now, in the wake of his unexpected death and yet another potential pick’s refusal to run, it’s becoming less and less clear the centrist group will be able to launch a third-party campaign against Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump. “Every serious person who has taken a look at this gambit immediately sees they would just be helping to elect Donald Trump,” as former GOP strategist and Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell put it Thursday. “Time for No Labels and its donors to pull the plug.”
The latest figure to turn down No Labels was Chris Christie, who had toyed with the idea of a third-party bid but concluded there was “not a pathway to win” after his team conducted polling in several states. “If my candidacy in any way, shape or form would help Donald Trump become president again, then it is not the way forward,” Christie said in a statement Wednesday.
That’s about the same conclusion West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin reached after similarly weighing a “unity ticket” run with No Labels: “They need to take a hard look,” he said earlier in March, “and is it going to basically work as a spoiler,” helping to reelect Trump. Other no-gos include former GOP candidate Nikki Haley, who said she wouldn’t be able to work with a Democratic vice president on a unity ticket; former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, who said he “didn’t want to be a spoiler”; and former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, who said last week he would instead work to improve the GOP to put forth “more common-sense conservative candidates in the future.” Liz Cheney, a leading conservative Trump critic, and Kyrsten Sinema, the retiring Arizona senator, have also ruled out No Labels campaigns.
No Labels Founder and CEO Nancy Jacobson has given little indication that the group will abandon plans to field a candidate this year. “This is Nancy’s decision, and her decision alone,” a source familiar with the group’s internal deliberations told NBC News. “If she wants a ticket, we’re getting a ticket.” But the organization has also suggested it could drop its ambitions if it doesn’t come up with a viable candidate by April—and, with the clock ticking and its chair passed, it’s difficult to see how it pulls off a nomination. “I’m not sure who’s up next, if anyone,” a No Labels donor told Politico earlier this month after Manchin and Hogan each declined offers to run.
That would be welcome news for the Biden campaign, which has framed the November contest as a choice between democracy and Trump’s authoritarianism. “We’re gonna stay focused on the issues and make this about freedom and democracy,” the Biden campaign’s Quentin Fulks said earlier this year. “The Americans that have the most at stake understand that and they’re not going to be fooled by anything else.” But, of course, No Labels is not the only third-party threat: There’s also Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose candidacy Trump said Wednesday is “great for MAGA.” And, indeed, RFK Jr.—who has been working to get on the ballot in all 50 states and recently announced attorney Nicole Shanahan as his running mate—has appeared in polls to help Trump and hurt Biden. “I love that he is running!” Trump said Wednesday.
The Biden campaign has mostly tried to project confidence about third-party challengers. But, as ABC News reported Wednesday, Democrats seem ready to go more on the offensive against Kennedy, with the DNC even putting together a team specifically to knock down potential spoilers. “All [Kennedy] can do is take away votes from President Biden and make it easier for Donald Trump to win,” Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis said on a press call this week. “And we simply can’t afford to let that happen.”
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