Enraging Dems, 'No Labels' Group Will Proceed With Bipartisan Presidential Ticket

In a move that adds a new and likely Republican-favoring variable to a 2024 presidential race that features two unpopular major party candidates, the centrist "No Labels" political organization on Friday voted to move forward with fielding a ticket of their own. 

“Earlier today, I led a discussion with the 800 No Labels delegates from all 50 states," said No Labels national convention chair Mike Rawlings. “They voted near unanimously to continue our 2024 project and to move immediately to identify candidates to serve on the Unity presidential ticket." 

Founded in 2010, No Labels bills itself as a "national movement of commonsense Americans pushing our leaders together to solve our country's biggest problems." It's not a political party, but is instead configured as a 401(c)(4) social welfare organization. That structure frees the group from having to disclose its donors or report on its actions. 

In 2021, No Labels launched an ambitious project to secure ballot access so it would be positioned to give a platform to a bipartisan ticket in the 2024 election "if the two major parties select candidates the vast majority of Americans don’t want to vote for in 2024." As of late February, No Labels had secured ballot slots in 16 states, including Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and North Carolina. Though the group previously publicized ambitions to be on all 50 state ballots, they're now merely aspiring to be on a "majority"

With the Trump-Biden rematch now a virtual certainty -- and 67% of Americans saying they're tired of seeing the same candidates -- No Labels on Friday held a mass online meeting where delegates gave leadership the green light to try filling a ticket -- by design, pairing a Republican and a Democrat as presidential and vice-presidential candidates, in no particular order. 

"Try" is the key word. Even as it announced it will move forward with its 2024 project, Rawlings acknowledged the group hasn't identified candidates and may not be successful in finding a pair worth presenting to America. The selection process will be handled by the group's leadership, who will present their recommendation to delegates for a vote. 

Last year, it appeared centrist Democratic West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin was a favorite to run with No Labels. In February, however, Manchin ruled out a bid, saying he had no interest in becoming "a spoiler."

Similarly, after suspending her Republican nomination campaign last week, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley ruled out a run. "If I were to do No Labels, that would require a Democrat vice president. I can't do what I want to do as president with a Democrat vice president," she told journalists. 

One relatively obscure name did surface on Friday: The Wall Street Journal reported that No Labels is considering former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan, a Republican, for the top of the ticket. He served from 2019 to 2023. Duncan's centrist resume includes rejecting the idea that Georgia's 2020 presidential race was rigged and seizing upon the dubious Georgia racketeering indictment of Donald Trump and others as an opportunity to urge the GOP to "move past Donald Trump." 

Democrats are already feeling vulnerable in the face of broad party dissatisfaction with President Biden -- to the extent that 13% of Michigan and 19% of Minnesota Dems voted "uncommitted" in their primaries. On top of that, polls suggest the presence of third-party and independent candidates give a net boost to Trump. Centrist think tank Third Way, for example, found Trump leads Biden by 0.5% in a in a head-to-head matchup. With the addition of an unnamed "moderate, independent" candidate, Trump's lead grows to 2.5%.  

Leftists reacted with anger to Friday's news. "No Labels has put their dangerous, reckless thought experiment ahead of the rights and freedoms of millions of Americans and the future of our democracy,” Rahna Epting, executive director of liberal activist group MoveOn, told The New York Times. “Any candidates who join the No Labels presidential ticket will be complicit in making it easier for Donald Trump and MAGA extremists to win a second term in the White House.”

Leftist vitriol against No Labels has been flowing for months. "Anybody who participates in this No Labels malarkey should have their lives ruined,” the Bulwark's Jonathan Last said in December, according to No Labels. "The should lose whatever jobs they might have. They should be kicked off corporate boards" and "become social pariahs."

Democrats aren't the only ones clenching their fists over No Labels -- the fake-Republican grifters at the Lincoln Project are also howling. “We’ve said it for months: A vote for No Labels is a vote for Donald Trump,” co-founder Reed Galen told the Journal. “The only way to stop the disintegration of democracy is to vote to re-elect President Biden.”