After failing to recruit serious contenders to run on an imagined "unity ticket" in 2024, the "No Labels" organization announced that it would "stand down" from the current presidential cycle and end its efforts to offer an alternative to voters the group said were weary of the presumptive Democrat and Republican candidacies of Biden and Trump, respectively.
"Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run, and hungrier for unifying national leadership, than ever before," No Labels said in a statement released Thursday afternoon. "But No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House," the group explained.
"No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down," the statement concluded.
More from The Wall Street Journal's exclusive report on the 2024 development:
Jacobson told allies this week that the group would end its effort because it hasn’t been able to recruit a credible ticket that could win the election, according to people familiar with the process. They said Jacobson told supporters that the organization had reached out to 30 potential candidates during its process.
Before the group decided to discontinue its search for a unity ticket candidate after spending millions in its recruitment push, individuals such as former New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), and former Maryland Republican Governor Larry Hogan had been eyed as potential candidates to run under the No Labels banner, but they — along with anyone else the group tried to recruit — declined to mount a bid.
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Thursday's announcement is no doubt welcome news for President Joe Biden and the DNC, the latter having just launched a formal effort to torpedo third-party campaigns lest they peel support away from Biden and act as spoilers, allowing Trump to cruise back to the White House.
No Labels had hoped to secure ballot access in all 50 states and D.C. "in time to potentially offer our ballot line to an independent Unity Ticket in 2024 if that's what the American people want." Citing polls showing some two-thirds of Americans registering dissatisfaction with the candidates put forward by Democrats and Republicans, the group believed a unity ticket had a shot "[b]ecause this moment is unlike any other time in modern U.S. political history."
Surveys conducted on behalf of No Labels turned up 63 percent of Americans who said they "would be open to supporting a moderate independent presidential candidate in 2024 if the alternatives" were Biden and Trump. "That's an unprecedented figure that reflects how fed up the American people are with the division in our country and how hungry they are for better choices," No Labels concluded.
Even if American voters are uniquely primed to consider supporting a third-party candidate this cycle, No Labels perhaps didn't account for the lack of interest on the part of candidates who had a feasible path to becoming a major presidential candidate.
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