Despite the fact that Democratic Senator Joe Manchin rebuffed them, the group No Labels is still pushing ahead seeking to back a third-party candidate for president in November.
Manchin had long been considered the leading potential candidate that No Labels would back. However, he announced last Friday that he will not be running for president in 2024.
That left No Labels with no obvious choice for who to back, leading many to believe that the group would just sit out the 2024 election cycle altogether. That’s not going to happen, though.
Dr. Benjamin Chavis Jr., the national co-chair of the group, told MSNBC over the weekend that they are looking at “several exceptional leaders” who could run as a third-party candidate come November.
While Chavis didn’t name those potential candidates that might appear on a “unity ticket,” he said an announcement could be made in the near future. During an appearance on “The Weekend” TV program on Sunday, he said:
“In the next couple of weeks or more, we will probably make an announcement whether or not we will give the ballot access to a unity ticket. A unity ticket means a Republican and a Democrat. And we are talking to Republicans, Democrats and independents.”
Officials with No Labels said they’ll likely determine whether to push a unity presidential ticket closer to Super Tuesday, which will take place March 5.
They also said that they wouldn’t be acting as a spoiler in the upcoming election looking to help either President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump win the election.
As Chavis said:
“We’re in a state of uncertainty in our nation. The only thing that’s certain right now is uncertainty. So, I don’t think we should speculate on what’s going to happen because nobody really knows.
“What we do know is that the majority of the American people don’t want to see a repeat of 2020.”
What he’s obviously referring to is the fact that Biden and Trump are the presumptive candidates for both major political parties. Biden is all but a shoe-in for the Democrats as the incumbent president, and Trump only has one remaining official challenger in the GOP primary — Nikki Haley.
Thus far, No Labels has qualified to appear on the ballot in 16 states, Chavis said, and the group is continuing to push forward to get added to the ballot in every state ahead of the November election.
He explained:
“It’s a long, tedious process. And we’re very pleased with the voter access that we’ve gotten so far, and we’re going to keep pushing.”
One possibility to lead a unity presidential ticket could be Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey who was a candidate in the GOP primary in both this election cycle and the last one in 2020.
Christie, who has been a significant critic of Trump and Biden, hasn’t ruled out a run for president as a third-party candidate.
He said that No Labels hasn’t approached him yet, but he also didn’t dismiss the possibility that he might say yes if they did.
