Manchin 2024 chatter puts spotlight on No Labels

The efforts of No Labels to organize a third-party ticket in 2024 got a potential boost with Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) flirtation with a potential presidential bid.

No Labels has for months been gathering information about the viability of a so-called unity ticket in next year’s presidential race. While the group is still assessing whether to move forward and how it would select candidates, Manchin’s exit from the Senate has stoked further chatter about the prospect of an independent campaign.

Manchin, who is friendly with the group, earlier this month announced he would not seek another term in the Senate and said he plans to travel the country and gauge interest in a centrist political movement. He has said in recent interviews he would consider a White House run.

The West Virginia Democrat told CBS News last week he believes there’s “plenty of time” to decide whether he’ll run for president, and he noted a third-party bid would not entail a primary process. He also told NBC News last week he would “absolutely” consider a 2024 bid

Manchin’s talk of a possible White House run has put the spotlight on No Labels, a self-described “national movement of commonsense Americans” that is viewed as perhaps the most likely outlet for a third-party candidate to get on the ballot next year.

The senator earlier this year attended a No Labels town hall event in New Hampshire along with former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R).

Ryan Clancy, the chief strategist for No Labels, said in an interview the group is not having conversations with Manchin about potentially being on the ticket in 2024. But Clancy praised Manchin for fostering conversation about important issues such as immigration and for engaging with open-minded, independent voters.

While Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West have separately launched independent presidential bids, it is unclear whether they will get on the ballot in enough states to significantly affect the 2024 race.

No Labels, meanwhile, has already gained ballot access in 12 states. Clancy said the group is on track to be on the ballot or active in 27 states by the end of the year. The goal is to be on the ballot in 34 states by the spring, and Clancy noted the remaining 16 either require a named candidate to gain access or require less administrative work to get on the ballot and could be handled by an eventual ticket.

No Labels expects to decide “sometime after March 15” about whether to offer its ballot line to a ticket and who would be on a theoretical lineup.

Manchin and Huntsman have both engaged with No Labels. Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who is a No Labels national co-chair, has also openly floated the possibility of a third-party run.

Clancy said any eventual candidate would have to embrace “key elements” of No Labels’s policy booklet released over the summer, a 68-page document that outlines the group’s views on topics such as immigration, foreign policy, abortion and technology and censorship.

While the fate of the No Labels effort is still to be determined, that has not stopped critics from sounding the alarm about how a third-party bid could be the difference between President Biden winning reelection and losing to former President Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination.

Third Way, a left-center think tank, has led the charge in warning about the risks involved in the No Labels effort.

The group published a memo this month titled “The No Labels Third-Party Bid: A Plan that Will Re-elect Trump” that outlined concerns about how a No Labels ticket would be more damaging to Biden than to Trump and cast doubt on the path for a third-party candidate to actually win the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency.

Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, said No Labels’s leadership appears to be “the only people on planet Earth who think they can win.” Still, he described his level of concern about the risks associated with a No Labels ticket as extremely high.

“On a scale of 1-100, it’s 100,” Bennett said. 

“We honestly believe in a head-to-head race, these latest polls not withstanding, Biden wins because of the dynamics of the electorate,” Bennett continued, arguing Biden will be boosted by “the way that people are going to be thinking about Trump by the time we get to next November and are reminded of who he is and what he stands for.”

“But we think if there’s a well-funded, reasonably high-profile alleged moderate as an alternative, [Biden] loses,” Bennett added. 

No Labels has been adamant that it opposes another Trump presidency and has rebuffed criticisms that its effort would help put the former president back in the White House. The group’s national co-chairs published a memo in May titled “Donald Trump Should Never Again Be President.”

Instead, the group insists there is an opening for a third-party candidate that has not existed in previous election cycles, citing deep voter dissatisfaction with the likely Republican and Democratic nominees in 2024.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released earlier this month that surveyed voters in six battleground states found 37 percent of voters had a favorable view of former President Trump, 36 percent had a favorable view of Biden, and 19 percent of voters had an unfavorable view of both.

A CNN poll released this month found Biden’s favorability rating at 36 percent and Trump’s at 38 percent. Among the registered voters who have an unfavorable view of both men, 17 percent said they would vote for another candidate.

Clancy additionally pointed to the 1992 presidential race, when independent candidate Ross Perot led in a June Gallup poll with 39 percent support. Perot eventually won nearly 19 percent of the national vote, though he did not win any electoral votes.

Clancy noted the number of self-described independents in the U.S. has significantly increased since then.

“In life it’s usually dangerous to say this time is different because it’s usually not,” Clancy said. “But this time we think it is. We really do. The depth of dissatisfaction voters have with their likely choices, we just don’t think Washington has caught up to that yet.”