According to POLITICO, donors to the No Labels ticket are getting anxious that it is Super Tuesday and there is no slate of candidates to compete in the remainder of the 2024 primary season. Former President Donald Trump is expected to make huge gains over Tuesday evening’s primary results, increasing the desire of those who want a third-party alternative to have a contender on the field. But despite the stated intention of No Labels executives to meet on Friday in order to craft their bipartisan presidential ticket, it is of little comfort to donors who have poured money into this pipe dream.
Donors to No Labels are starting to fear that the third-party group missed its window for launching a much-hyped presidential bid and are questioning whether to make future financial commitments to the organization.
Those fears have intensified after two high-profile No Labels candidate targets — former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat — passed on the chance to run for president, and as the party’s planned April presidential nominating convention approaches without a clear ticket in place.
“No Labels just missed one heck of an opportunity to potentially be viable, and now I don’t know that they can be viable,” said Jim Teague, the CEO of a Texas oil and gas company and a No Labels donor. “I don’t know who they can possibly get to run that would generate excitement that Joe Manchin would have generated,” he said, adding that it’s “pretty doubtful” he will donate to the organization in the future.
Let’s be real. Very few Americans buy the concept of middle-of-the-road politics, especially not at this time. Remember Andrew Yang and the Forward Party? Yeah, no one else does either. Even the far Left New Republic admits this.
Meanwhile, like it or not, there just isn’t a vast centrist coalition out there that will elect a bipartisan unity ticket. So No Labels isn’t heroically steering the country between two equivalently flawed alternatives toward an idealized outcome on the other side. Instead, of all the existing possible outcomes for the nation, it’s making the only one that threatens serious disaster—by the group’s own lights—more likely.
The issues facing our nation are black and white, with few shades of gray. Even worse, people on both sides of the aisle have no faith in No Labels’ claims of building a unity ticket of a Democrat and a Republican that will change the face of politics. Most progressives are firmly convinced that No Labels is a dark money organization that is deliberately boosting Trump.
Been saying for months that No Labels is pushing a dangerous lie that a unity ticket they back would win. The reality is they’d just put Trump back in the White House. Now they’re lying about Biden’s record & potential candidates don’t want any part of it.https://t.co/OTGhNwqi3p
— Jim Messina (@Messina2012) March 3, 2024
No Labels has also given financial backing to Ohio Senate candidate Frank LaRose, which increases the Left’s suspicions. The Right, on the other hand, is convinced that No Labels’ role is to siphon votes away from Trump.
NEW: No Labels plans a Zoom call tonight with Frank LaRose, a Republican locked in a heated #OHSEN primary, per email from the group’s Liz Morrison.
LaRose has worked w/No Labels in the past but tacked further right to run for Senate.https://t.co/sGC5dIPRha pic.twitter.com/aUK8gG5z3s
— Henry J. Gomez (@HenryJGomez) March 5, 2024
Then there is the speculation about the curious timing of Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema breaking her silence on re-election. No Labels was glowing in their praise of Sinema’s record.
The entire No Labels movement is grateful for @SenatorSinema’s courageous leadership. The worse Washington has gotten, the more she has risen to the occasion. She led the Senate passage of major bipartisan legislation like the 2021 infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and most… https://t.co/jBP6WEMr37
— No Labels (@NoLabelsOrg) March 5, 2024
The fact that former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley now feels no obligation to endorse the Republican nominee is signaling to some that she may be the top of this unity ticket. Either way, the organization remains very hush-hush. Not very transparent, which also bothers the donors.
No Labels is choosing candidates with “a very secret process,” said Bill Kunkler, who has been a donor and supporter of the group since 2018. He said possible names are being vetted by a small group of leaders and advisers.
“There’s going to be a proper vetting process so that we don’t end up with somebody where there are surprises,” said Kunkler, who was a key fundraiser for Republicans Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan when they ran for president and vice president in 2012. “People might call this a ‘smoke-filled room’ process, but my response is, they can either vote for us and our candidate in November or not. What’s smoke-filled about that?”
Tuesday night’s primary results are already starting to roll in, and the results may well dictate whether No Labels still has any viability or whether they are dead on arrival. The donors appear to already be digging its grave.
