‘No Labels’ Eyes a Third-Party Run in 2024. Democrats Are Alarmed.

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Bipartisan political group No Labels is stepping up a well-funded effort to field a “unity ticket” for the 2024 presidential race, prompting fierce resistance from even some of its closest allies who fear handing the White House back to Donald Trump.

At the top of the list of potential candidates is Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who has been a headache to his party and could bleed support from President Joe Biden in areas crucial to his reelection.

The centrist group’s leadership was in New York this week raising part of the money — around $70 million — that it says it needs to help with nationwide ballot access efforts.

“The determination to nominate a ticket” will be made shortly after the primaries next year on what is known as Super Tuesday, March 5, said Nancy Jacobson, the co-founder and leader of No Labels. A national convention has been set for April 14-15 in Dallas, where a Democrat-Republican ticket would be set to take on the two major-party nominees. (Biden is facing two long-shot challengers, and Trump is the Republican front-runner.)

Other potential No Labels candidates being floated include Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., and former Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md., who has said he would not run for the GOP nomination and is the national co-chair of the group. But Manchin has received most notice recently after speaking on a conference call last month with donors.

“We’re not looking to pick the ticket right now,” former Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., a longtime associate of the group, cautioned in an interview Wednesday as he prepared to meet with donors and leaders in New York. “Our focus is getting on the ballot.”

The drive has already secured ballot spots in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado and Oregon and is now targeting Florida, Nevada and North Carolina. But gaining ballot access nationwide is a challenging and expensive effort, and the group still has a long way to go.

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Caveats aside, the effort is causing deep tensions with the group’s ideological allies, congressional partners and Democratic Party officials who are scrambling to stop it. Third-party candidates siphoned enough votes to arguably cost Democrats elections in 2000 (Al Gore) and 2016 (Hillary Rodham Clinton). Republicans say the same thing about Ross Perot’s role in blocking George H.W. Bush’s reelection in 1992.

“If No Labels runs a Joe Manchin against Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I think it will be a historic disaster,” said Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., who until now has been a strong supporter of the organization. “And I speak for just about every moderate Democrat and frankly most of my moderate Republican friends.”

People close to Manchin have their doubts he would join a No Labels ticket. He must decide by January whether to run for reelection in his firmly Republican state, where he does see an avenue to return to the Senate.

The state’s popular Democrat-turned-Republican governor, Jim Justice, is running for the Republican nomination to challenge Manchin, but so is West Virginia’s most Trump-aligned House member, Alex Mooney, who has the backing of the deep-pocketed political action committee Club for Growth.

If Mooney can knock out Justice, or damage him badly by bringing up the governor’s centrist record and days as a Democrat, Manchin sees a path to reelection, and no real prospect of actually winning the presidency on the No Labels ticket.

But Manchin is keeping his options open, at least as he raises money under the No Labels auspices.

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