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According to Puck’s Tara Palmeri, the 501(c)(4) No Labels may be pivoting to become more of a political party in 2024. It’s reportedly looking into getting on the ballot in all 50 states, a precursor to running an actual third-party presidential candidate against (presumably) President Joe Biden and whoever comes out of the Republican field. No Labels told Palmeri that “nothing is definite,” but the dark money group didn’t deny it had raised $50 million with an eye on that project. There’s a hint of the strategic calculus in an April blog post from No Labels CEO Nancy Jacobson, who, citing a poll showing that nearly 60% of voters would consider a moderate third-party candidate, declared: “2024 would mark the first campaign in earnest where neither major party candidate has any real potential to resonate with the voters in the middle of the electorate. Biden vs. Trump redux would be a base vs. base election. And that would open the door to a new, unique, and underappreciated possibility — namely the likelihood that a third, independent candidate could emerge as a credible contender for the Oval Office.”
No Labels is ostensibly devoted to bipartisanship and spreads its money out between both parties. In 2020, this amounted to a more or less even split. But so far in 2022, 72% of its $1.5 million has gone to Republicans (a list topped by Michigan Representative Fred Upton, who announced his retirement earlier this year rather than face a primary against a Trump-backed challenger). The Democrats No Labels has backed include most notably New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who led a kind of mini-insurrection of moderates against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last year, an insurrection No Labels supported with TV ads.
But it’s one thing to be an active player in intra-D.C. conflicts and quite another to spend millions on a theory that there’s an invisible majority of Americans would be willing to vote against the two major parties and elect a non-Democrat, non-Republican president for the first time in modern history. The most successful insurgent candidate in living memory, Ross Perot, got nearly 19% of the popular vote in 1992 but earned exactly zero electoral college votes, underscoring the massive structural disadvantages faced by third parties. Despite this, third-party candidates always claim they can win thanks to some unique set of circumstances, à la Jacobsen’s blog post.
In the past few years, as party polarization has accelerated, moderates have often publicly mused about an insurgent middle-of-the-road candidate, the most recent (and ridiculous) example of which was Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, who lined some consultants’ pockets before concluding that it was as dumb an idea as everyone said.
Who would run on a No Labels ticket is unclear, but Paleri reported the group has polled a pairing of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Democrat and a Republican on the centrist flanks of their respective parties. It’s difficult to imagine either having a national constituency and they would instead peel off a limited number of voters — and possibly more Democrats than Republicans. Though Jacobson doesn’t note this in her post, the poll she cites found that while 60% of Democrats and 71% of self-described independents would consider a moderate third-party candidate, only 47% of Republicans would. A No Labels presidential campaign might mainly be a boost to Trump.
Voting for a third party when you live in a safely blue or red state can be defended on the grounds that it is an invisible (and likely meaningless) form of protest. Donating to a third party, however, is less defensible, as it reveals a naivete about how U.S. politics works that borders on self-delusion.
As we know, though, there is no shortage of self-delusion among America’s wealthy class — think of Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer blowing large fortunes on doomed presidential bids in 2020 or, for that matter, how Ross Perot self-financed a second White House run in 1996. Or, in a more recent example, look at the millions spent in this election cycle by software entrepreneur Dan O’Dowd on an outlandish Senate campaign in California (he won just 1.1% of the vote.)
With rich people like this around, it’s no surprise that No Labels has apparently raised tens of millions of dollars for its quixotic new project.