Topline
No Labels, a third-party political organization, is abandoning its effort to identify candidates and put forward a “Unity” ticket in the 2024 presidential election, the organization announced Thursday.
Key Facts
No Labels said in a statement to Forbes it “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,” but “no such candidates emerged.”
Notable politicians including Republican former Lt. Gov. of Georgia Geoff Duncan, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Republican former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Republican former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley have turned down being on a No Labels ticket this year.
No Labels said in its statement it will continue to be engaged and “call out both sides when they speak and act in bad faith,” saying the 2024 election will likely “be the most divisive presidential election of our lives.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported the decision Thursday.
Big Number
30. That’s how many potential candidates Nancy Jacobson, No Labels’ founder and CEO, said the group had reached out to for a potential ticket, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Key Background
The news that No Labels will not put forward a presidential ticket comes shortly after the death of former Sen. Joe Lieberman, who died March 27 after complications from a fall. Lieberman, a former Connecticut senator who was known as a centrist and spent his final years in Congress as an independent, was the founding chairman of No Labels and was working to identify candidates to run for president in 2024 on a unity ticket. As recently as March 14, No Labels was still trying to select the candidates for a unity ticket, saying in a press release “it’s clear the American people are still searching for” a choice beyond the two-party options. Lieberman was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000, and later endorsed then-Sen. John McCain’s 2008 Republican presidential bid.
Tangent
There are still high-profile third-party options for voters. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running with Nicole Shanahan as an independent, Jill Stein is running as a Green Party candidate and left-wing academic Cornel West is running as an independent.
