The Post reported on Thursday that No Labels was throwing in the towel because no candidate “emerged” with a “credible path to winning the White House.” The failure of any candidate to “emerge” was not for lack of trying on No Labels’ part. A slew of household names turned down the invitation to run, including Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), former Republican South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former Republican North Carolina governor Pat McCrory and former Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie.
Christie was most explicit in explaining his reasons not to run. “If there is not a pathway to win and if my candidacy in any way, shape or form would help Donald Trump become president again, then it is not the way forward,” he said in late March. Christie revealed that “while there is a conceptual appetite for a third choice in the upcoming election, there was not a practical path to victory.”
Perhaps no single person played as great a role in discouraging a No Labels ticket than Matt Bennett, the co-founder and executive vice president for public affairs at the moderate Democratic think tank Third Way. I talked to Bennett over email about No Labels, and why it was so important to stop them. This conversation has been edited.
Was No Labels based on a false premise that voters needed some other choice?
They were not just saying they would be a place to park a protest vote, the way Jill Stein does. They were saying they were “in it to win it” — that they would defy history, polling and political physics to actually win as a third party. That was preposterous, as we pointed out many times, analyzing their polling, electoral map, etc. The question of whether voters would like another choice is quite different than whether they would actually choose a third party in November.
Then why was it a threat to Biden and therefore an aid to Trump and anti-democracy forces?
Trump can’t get above about 47 percent of the vote, so he can win only with the help of third parties, as he did in 2016. In 2020, when third parties were gone, he lost. This cycle, third parties help Trump the same way. He’s got a low ceiling but a solid floor — his voters don’t leave him.
Biden has a higher ceiling — plenty of folks who aren’t excited about him would choose him in a two-way race with Trump. But his floor is softer, and a small but meaningful group of voters who pollsters call the “double haters” might choose a third party if available.
What did Third Way do to get the word out?
Everything we did was in service to one goal: convincing credible candidates to decline the No Labels nomination if offered. We were the first to ring the alarm about this threat after they went public in September 2022. We assembled a broad coalition, from the far left to the center right. We issued dozens of analyses of their plans and claims. We convinced many of their allies to come out against their 2024 plan.
And as each potential candidate became public, we ran sustained campaigns of private persuasion from people in their personal and professional circles to convince them to decline. That started with Manchin and Larry Hogan, the first to emerge as No Labels prospects. But we continued this work with almost two dozen others as names emerged. And while we used mainstream and social media and even paid digital ads in this effort, we never directed it broadly at voters. Rather, our message was always aimed at the political classes and those around the candidates.
What would you say to No Labels supporters about voting for Biden?
Remember the election is a choice between a calm, rational moderate and a deeply malign, unstable would-be autocrat. Moreover, Biden’s character and policy choices track very closely to those No Labels claims to support. But whatever your view of Biden, this is not a referendum on his first term. Even if you are disappointed or worry about his age, you simply must vote for him if you care about responsible, centrist governing. Failing to vote — or throwing away your vote on another third party (Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Stein, etc.) — would be tantamount to voting for Trump. Pressure Biden to move to the center all you like, but do not be party to endangering our democracy by returning a madman to power.
No Labels has bowed out, but Kennedy remains. While he is on only six states’ ballots (Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Utah) so far and is, as Bennett told me, “making some kind of weird attack from the fringe,” the potential to draw some voters who might otherwise join the Biden coalition remains. Even a few hundred or thousand votes could be decisive.
The lesson from the No Labels debacle is threefold. First, a third-party with a platitudinal agenda has virtually no chance to lure voters away from the two major parties. Second, at a time when pluralistic democracy, the rule of law and objective truth are under assault it is intellectually dishonest — and politically futile — to argue that both parties’ represent unacceptable choices. Plainly for people claiming to represent the center of the political spectrum, the pro-democracy center-left Biden is far and away the best choice. (Sure enough, No Labels national director Joe Cunningham announced he would now vote for Biden.) Finally, the experience of other democracies under siege tells us that anti-authoritarian forces must stick together despite some policy differences if we are to defeat authoritarian strongmen (e.g., Brazil, Poland).
Without a No Labels ticket, Biden and democracy stand a better chance of prevailing in November. That is no small thing.
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