No Labels announces it won’t run a third party presidential ticket

No Labels, the centrist group that sought to inject a bipartisan third-party ticket into the presidential race, announced Thursday that it is abandoning its efforts.

“Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run, and hungrier for unifying national leadership, than ever before,” No Labels co-founder Nancy Jacobson 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.”

No Labels spent significant time and energy plotting to put forward a bipartisan “unity ticket” to compete against Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The group believed Americans were seeking a different option — but ultimately, organizers were unable to find a viable and willing candidate, with top names like Sen. Joe Manchin, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, among many others, all declining to lead the effort.

No Labels noted that while its presidential ambitions have ended, it will “remain engaged over the next year” in the election.

“Like many Americans, we are concerned that the division and strife gripping the country will reach a critical point after this election, regardless of who wins,” the statement read. “Suffice it to say that this movement is not done. In fact, it is just beginning.”

The Wall Street Journal first reported the news that No Labels would not be choosing a candidate.

While the impact of a third party run would have been hard to predict — especially given the wide range of candidates discussed — the announcement is likely a relief to Biden, as well as the broad coalition of anti-Trump groups that had organized to stop No Labels from putting forward a candidate.

In December, Semafor reported on one of the anti-No Labels calls, where various Democratic and Republican groups opposing Trump detailed legal attacks, opposition research, and a pressure campaign aimed at deterring politicians from signing on to help. In an unusual move, No Labels asked the Justice Department to investigate whether these “intimidation tactics” constituted a crime.

Third Way, one of the main center-left groups involved in the effort to squash a No Labels ticket, said in a statement it was “deeply relieved that everyone rejected their offer.” Matt Bennett, the executive vice president for public affairs, told Semafor that while No Labels still “did damage” to Joe Biden’s re-election efforts by “attacking him from the center,” that damage “would have been vastly greater if they had a candidate.”

“Our entire campaign was aimed at them. That was our whole theory of the case, and we made the case relentlessly, over and over and over for 18 months, that there was no way they could win, and that they would be a spoiler, and that they would end up as Jill Stein 2.0,” Bennett said. “The only thing that worked was going directly at the candidates, and we just kept doing it, you know, like a game of whack-a-mole: As one emerged, we would go to them and make the case to them.”

The No Labels announcement comes just days after one of the group’s most prominent backers, former Sen. Joe Lieberman, died unexpectedly after suffering a fall.