The centrist group No Labels accused the Democratic National Committee of waging “war” against it, fearing the impact of a potential third candidate in a putative 2024 election rematch between the president and Donald Trump.
In an open letter entitled Defending the ‘Soul of the Nation’ and Ending the War on No Labels, the former Connecticut senator and vice-presidential nominee, Joe Lieberman, the former Missouri governor Jay Nixon and the civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis accused the DNC of “a heavy-handed effort to limit Americans’ choices in the 2024 election”.
They wrote: “President Biden just told ProPublica … he may disagree with our political analysis, but he recognises our ‘democratic right’ to do our work.”
But, they said, citing CBS News, the DNC was encouraging [state and local party chairs] to denounce No Labels as a “threat to our democracy”.
“The DNC takes issue with our effort to get on state voting ballots so we can potentially offer up a unity presidential ticket and to provide the additional choices millions of Americans so clearly want.”
Nixon, Lieberman and Chavis also cited a “communique” sent last month by “the state Democratic party executive director in Utah … to Democratic county chairs, urging them to “stop” No Labels “NOW”.
“We’re not naive,” the signers said, “and we don’t expect the Democratic National Committee or the Republican National Committee to welcome competition that threatens their power and influence.
“But as lifelong Democrats, we do expect the leaders of our party – which has always championed ballot access and voting rights – to refrain from blatantly anti-democratic behaviour.”
The West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin and the former Republican Maryland governor Larry Hogan have been touted as possible No Labels candidates.
Critics say if No Labels does mount a campaign, polling shows more voters likely to peel from Joe Biden than Trump, handing the latter the White House for a second term should he be the Republican nominee.
Biden said as much to ProPublica, saying Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s running mate in the presidential election of 2000, “is going to help the other guy, and he knows” it.
“That’s a political decision he’s making that I obviously think is a mistake,” Biden said. “But he has a right to do that.”
Trump faces 91 criminal charges (for election subversion, retention of classified information and hush money payments) and civil threats including a fraud trial and a defamation trial arising from a rape claim a judge called “substantially true”.
His presidency ended in chaos, when he incited the deadly 6 January 2021, attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of his with the lie that his defeat by Biden was the result of electoral fraud.
But polling also shows more Americans think Biden is too old, at 80, to be given a second term than think the same of Trump, who is just three years younger.
Regardless, in their letter the No Labels leaders accused Democratic leaders of “an attack on the most fundamental democratic and constitutional principles that the Democratic party is supposed to defend”.
They also alleged an “organised campaign to subvert No Labels’ ballot access efforts that [is] on the razor’s edge of violating federal law … a blatant violation of the basic constitutional rights that No Labels and its supporters enjoy.
“No Labels will take whatever steps are necessary to protect the rights of Americans,” they said.
