No Labels, the group of moderates considering whether they should run a third-party candidate in 2024 has had Democrats in full panic mode for some time now.
In November, moderate Democratic Senator from West Virginia Joe Manchin announced he would not seek another term in the upper chamber, hindering the chance that Democrats hold the Senate after 2024 while stoking the fire that he may run as an independent.
With Joe Biden’s numbers becoming so bad that Hunter is considering fleeing the country, Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s campaign manager, has taken to Politico to bash the idea of a third party:
With a rematch between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump almost set in stone, it’s time to put a farce to rest: The notion that a third-party candidate could actually win the presidency in 2024.
The idea that a “unity ticket” featuring a Republican and a Democrat could somehow produce a nominee with “a clear path to victory” is worse than a political fiction. The group behind it, No Labels, is pushing a dangerous lie that would simply serve to put Trump back in the White House.
How can I be so certain? Look at the last half-century of election results. In modern U.S. presidential history, third parties have not won much. In 1968, George Wallace won 46 electoral votes by running a regionally-targeted (and racist) campaign. Since then, they’ve won zilch — not a single state. Not Gary Johnson or Jill Stein in 2016, and not Ralph Nader in 2000. None of them broke 5 percent of the vote.
Then there’s Ross Perot, who No Labels aspires to emulate for his appeal to “the vast middle of the electorate.” Despite unlimited cash and facing an unpopular incumbent in George H.W. Bush and a near-unknown in Bill Clinton, Perot failed to win a single state. Can No Labels twist the data and make an argument that Perot could have won if he had done things differently? Sure! But that’s like saying I could have been the quarterback of the Denver Broncos — technically true, but come on!
In October, Gallup released a poll showing that “sixty-three percent of U.S. adults currently agree with the statement that the Republican and Democratic parties do ‘such a poor job” of representing the American people that ‘a third major party is needed.”’
Labels has yet to announce a specific timeline for making a decision on running a third-party candidate. The Washington Examiner noted that Larry Hogan, the former Republican Maryland governor and national Co-Chairman, has indicated that the group may have an idea around the time of Super Tuesday in March.
