The centrist group No Labels will not field a third-party candidate for US president this year, it announced on Thursday.
“Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run and hungrier for unifying national leadership than ever before,” the group, which previously said it raised $60m, said in a statement.
“But No Labels has 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. No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news. Citing unnamed sources, the paper said Nancy Jacobson, founder and chief executive of No Labels, “told allies this week” an announcement would be made on Monday.
The group had not been able to find a workable ticket, the Journal said, despite reaching out to 30 potential candidates. No Labels then confirmed its decision.
Last week, No Labels saw both a rejection from the former New Jersey governor and two-time Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie and the death of Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic and independent Connecticut senator who was Al Gore’s vice-presidential nominee in 2000 before becoming No Labels chair.
Besides Christie, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, the former Maryland governor Larry Hogan and the soon-to-retire West Virginia senator Joe Manchin also ruled out No Labels bids.
Haley and Hogan are Republicans. Manchin is the only Democrat in statewide elected office in West Virginia.
On its website, No Labels says: “America deserves strong, honest and effective leaders in the White House who will commit to working closely with both parties to deliver commonsense solutions to America’s biggest problems. But most Americans don’t think either party is likely to offer that kind of choice for president in 2024.”
Biden and Trump do remain historically unpopular.
The group adds: “No Labels is preparing to offer a better choice. We are working to get on 2024 voting ballots in states across the country and we may offer our ballot line to a Unity presidential ticket if the American people demand it.”
It has said it has gained ballot access in 19 states – many more than Robert F Kennedy Jr, the independent candidate who has named a running mate, the lawyer Nicole Shanahan, as he targets the November election.
Third-party bids, however, remain highly controversial.
On the US left, Kennedy and No Labels have attracted widespread criticism for potentially damaging Biden in his rematch with Trump, though estimates vary over which candidate would stand to lose most voters to a serious third-party rival.
Third-party candidates have swayed modern elections. In 1992, the independent Ross Perot was widely held to have damaged George Bush, the incumbent Republican president who lost to Bill Clinton. In 2000 the Green candidate, Ralph Nader, was widely held to have taken votes from Gore, Clinton’s Democratic vice-president, in his razor-thin defeat by George W Bush. In 2016 another Green, Jill Stein, performed strongly in key states lost by Hillary Clinton in her shock defeat by Trump.
On Thursday, the former Republican operative Rick Wilson, a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, celebrated the end of what he called No Labels’ “quixotic pro-Trump presidential plan”.
“We are delighted that No Labels is off the radar screen for 2024,” Wilson said. “This is a net positive for Joe Biden … over to you now, Robert F Kennedy Jr. You’re next on the list of spoilers who need to be addressed politically.”
One of No Labels’ own co-founders has also criticised the group’s attempt to field a candidate this year.
In February, the former Daily Beast editor and CNN anchor John Avlon, a No Labels co-founder now running for Congress as a Democrat in New York, told the Guardian his former group was flirting with “a reckless gamble with democracy”, given Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, his continued domination of the Republican party and his widely perceived authoritarian leanings.
“When I formed [No Labels] with Democrats and Republicans in the wake of the Tea Party year of 2010,” Avlon said, “it was because we wanted to try to encourage politics and problem-solving between responsible Democrats and Republicans. So that led to the creation of the Problem Solvers caucus [in Congress].
“You know, it was never intended to do this.”
On Thursday 2 May, 3-4.15pm ET, join Tania Branigan, David Smith, Mehdi Hasan and Tara Setmayer for the inside track on the people, the ideas and the events that might shape the US election campaign. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live
