The bipartisan political group No Labels is stepping up a well-funded effort to field a “unity ticket” for the 2024 presidential race, prompting stiff resistance even from some of its closest allies who fear taking back the White House to Donald J. Trump.
At the top of the list of potential candidates is Sen. Joe Manchin III, the conservative West Virginia Democrat who has been a headache for his party and could bleed President Biden’s support in areas crucial to his re-election bid.
The centrist group’s leadership was in New York this week raising some of the money — about $70 million — it says it needs to help with get-to-the-ballot efforts across the country.
“The determination to nominate a ticket” will be made shortly after next year’s primary on what is known as Super Tuesday, March 5, said Nancy Jacobson, the co-founder and leader of No Labels. A national convention has been set for April 14-15 in Dallas, where a Democratic-Republican ticket would be established to face off against the two major party candidates. (Mr. Biden faces two long-term challengers, and Mr. Trump is the Republican favorite.)
Other potential No Labels candidates running include Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent from Arizona, and former Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican who has said he is not running for the GOP nomination and is the national co-chair of the group But Mr. Manchin has received the most notice recently after speaking on a conference call last month with donors.
“We’re not looking to pick the ticket right now,” former Rep. Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan and a longtime associate of the group, warned in an interview Wednesday as he prepared to meet with donors and leaders in New York. “Our focus is to get on the ballot.”
The campaign has already secured polling places in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado and Oregon and is now targeting Florida, Nevada and North Carolina. But getting ballot access across the country is a difficult and expensive endeavor, and the group still has a long way to go.
Ms. Jacobson called the bill “an insurance policy in case the two major parties put up presidential candidates that the vast majority of Americans don’t support.”
“We are very aware that any independent ticket faces a steep uphill battle and if our rigorously collected data and polls suggest that an independent ticket cannot win, we will not nominate a ticket,” he said.
Caveats aside, the effort is causing deep tensions with the group’s ideological allies, congressional partners and Democratic Party officials who are fighting to stop it. Third-party candidates diverted enough votes to cost Democrats elections in 2000 (Al Gore) and 2016 (Hillary Clinton). Republicans say the same about Ross Perot’s role in blocking George HW Bush’s 1992 re-election.
“If No Labels runs a Joe Manchin against Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I think it will be a historic disaster,” said Representative Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat and until now a staunch supporter of the organization. . “And I speak for almost all moderate Democrats and, frankly, most of my moderate Republican friends.”
People close to Mr. Manchin has his doubts that he would join a No Labels ticket. He must decide in January whether to run for re-election in his staunchly Republican state. But he does see a way to return to the Senate.
The state’s popular Democrat-turned-Republican governor, Jim Justice, is running for the Republican nomination to challenge Mr. Manchin, but so is West Virginia’s most Trump-aligned House member, Alex Mooney, who has the support of deep pocket politics. action commission Club for growth.
If Mr. Mooney can knock out Mr. Justice, or get it wrong wrong by bringing up the governor’s centrist record and days as a Democrat, Mr. Manchin sees a path to re-election and no real chance of winning the presidency in the No-Tags Entry.
But he’s keeping his options open, at least while raising money under the auspices of No Labels.
“We’re trying to get people back together for the good of the country, not just for the good of the party,” Mr. Manchin to the group’s donors in a recent conference call leaked to the news site. Puck this month.
Opponents mobilize to stop No Labels. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows sent a cease and desist letter this month to the group’s director of ballot access, accusing the organization of misrepresenting its intentions as it pushes for signatures to get on the state’s presidential ballot.
The The Arizona Democratic Party sued this spring to remove No Labels from the state ballot, accusing it of “engaging in a shady strategy to gain access to the ballot box, when in fact they are not a political party.”
One of No Labels’ founders, William Galston, a former political aide to President Bill Clinton, publicly resigned from his own organization over the push. In an interview, he pointed to polling that said voters who dislike both Mr. Trump and President Biden — “double haters” — overwhelmingly say they will vote for Mr. Biden in the end. Given an alternative, perhaps not.
And Democratic members of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a No Labels-aligned centrist coalition that actually does No Labels’ legislative work, are in open revolt.
“I can’t think of anything worse than another Trump presidency, and there’s no better way to help him than to run a third-party candidate,” said Representative Brad Schneider, D-Illinois.
No Labels has long had its detractors, accused of being variously ineffective, fronting Republicans and existing primarily to raise large sums of money from wealthy corporate donors, many of whom give primarily to Republicans.
But the murmuring criticism took on a more urgent tone when Puck posted a partial transcript from a leaked conference call that No Labels held with its funders. In it, Ryan Clancy, the group’s chief strategist, said ballot organizers were at “600,000 signatures and counting” and are closing in on ballot spots in “roughly 20 states,” eyeing set in the 50s.
Mr. Manchin joined the call as a closer: “The hope is to keep the country that we have, and that can’t be done by forcing extreme sides on both sides,” he said.
The political appeal of Mr. Manchin beyond West Virginia is questionable. The strongest discontent among Democrats with Mr. Biden comes from young voters, many of whom are energized by the issue of climate change, and are not aligned with the coal-state Democrat on it.
Mr. Manchin is not a climate denier in the traditional sense. He has repeatedly referred to the “climate crisis” caused by human activities.
But Mr. Manchin, whose state produces some of the nation’s highest levels of coal and natural gas and who has made millions from his family’s coal business, has long fought against policies that would punish companies for not moving more quickly to clean energy and has accused Mr. Biden to promote a “radical climate agenda”.
But Democrats worry. Pittsburgh’s southwest suburbs abut West Virginia, and it wouldn’t take many Democrats to get close to Mr. Manchin to deliver Pennsylvania to Mr. Trump, they warn.
Ms. Jacobson, in the leaked conference call, said No Labels had been “Pearl Harbored” by one March note of the Democratic centrist group third way The memo was bluntly titled: “A plan that will re-elect Trump.”
“It wasn’t exactly a sneak attack,” Third Way frontman Matt Bennett responded in an interview. “We are very alarmed.”
Lisa Friedman contributed reporting from Washington.
