It’s clear the American people are looking for new options in the 2024 presidential race. If there’s a Trump-Biden rematch, 64% of American voters would feel like the political system is broken, according to a recent CBS News/YouGov poll. A News Nation poll from June found that 49% of voters would consider a third-party candidate if Trump and Biden are once again the major-party nominees.
There is a massive effort underway to give voters that third option through “No Labels,” a group led in part by former Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and former Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md.
The group aims to welcome people who feel politically homeless and who are tired of extremes on the left and right.
Ryan Clancy, No Labels’ chief strategist, spoke with Straight Arrow News’ Ray Bogan about the group’s efforts as it considers whether to enter a candidate in the race.
Bogan: No Labels wants to get on the ballot in all 50 states. How is that going?
Clancy: Great. I mean, we’ve been at this for over a year and a half. Eight-hundred thousand signatures that we’ve gathered. We’re on the ballot in 11 states now — and that’s about as many as you can be on. Interestingly enough, some states don’t even let you get started until next year. So anytime a state opens up, we’re in there working to get on the ballot and feel very good about our prospects for getting on all 50 and D.C. by next year.
Bogan: No Labels says it wants to be the insurance policy for 2024. Your strategy says, “We are preparing for the possibility of nominating a candidate. We have not yet committed to do so. We will run ONLY under the proper environmental conditions.” What are the proper environmental conditions?
Clancy: Basically, there’s got to be an opening. We’ve said from the very start we have no interest in fueling any kind of protest or spoiler effort. This is only worth doing if it looks like there’s an actual path to victory. And there’s a lot of reasons today to suggest there is.
You cited the polls at the top about Americans dissatisfaction with the choices they’re likely to get in 2024. But we’ve of course done our own polling and research, the latest of which found 63% said they’d be open to voting for a moderate independent candidate if it were Trump and Biden.
You just don’t see numbers like this. Anybody who says, “Well, this time is different, Americans are usually kind of unhappy with their choices.” This time is different. We really have never seen this level of dissatisfaction and this level of openness to an alternative.
Bogan: People like to speculate as to who the No Labels candidate would take more votes away from, Joe Biden or Donald Trump. How does a third party avoid being a spoiler?
Clancy: Well, first, we got to agree on what a spoiler is. And to me a spoiler is, one, a candidate that can’t win. And two, it’s a candidate that whatever votes they do take, they take disproportionately from one party.
So you think about somebody like a Ralph Nader in 2000, who got only 2.5% of the vote, most of those votes probably would have went to Al Gore. Jill Stein in 2016 same deal, 1%, most of those votes probably would have went to Hillary Clinton.
But No Labels will never put up a ticket that looks like that. By definition, we would be putting forth a ticket that has a broad appeal to Americans across the political spectrum. And that’s why the polling and modeling we’ve done thus far shows no labels ticket pulling pretty evenly from both sides.
Bogan: Do you think that waiting so long to get a candidate in could ultimately hurt you in the long run? All the other major party candidates are all out there campaigning right now.
Clancy: I don’t think so. I mean, one of the things that is interesting is we of course have the permanent campaign in America. But being out there more, for more time, doesn’t necessarily accrue to the benefit of candidates. Sometimes they get a little stale over time. So, we’re going to have a convention in April of 2024 in Dallas, Texas. That’s the latest date in which we put up a ticket. And if we do, that still gives them a good seven months to go make their case to the American public.
Bogan: Is it more important for the No Labels party to come up with new ideas? Or promote the best ideas that are already out there, or more moderate or compromised versions of what’s already out there?
Clancy: Well, it’s a little bit of both. In July, we actually released our commonsense policy booklet, people can find it at Commonsensemajority.org. And this was based on our years’ worth of research and polling to see what the public really cares about. And what you’ll find in this booklet is 30 ideas that we think you could fairly say characterizes — this is where most Americans want to go on most issues. And if a unity ticket were to come along, we certainly don’t expect that they’d pick up every idea in this booklet, but that would be a great starting point.
Bogan: The CBS News-YouGov poll I mentioned earlier found that 51% of Biden voters say their vote is to oppose Trump, while 39% of Trump voters say they’re vote is to oppose Joe Biden. The protest vote numbers were worse for the 2016 election Trump v. Clinton. If people are this unhappy with their candidates, why do you think more hasn’t been done to grow roots at the local and state level?
Clancy: Well, one thing to be clear, No Labels isn’t a political party. We’re what’s called a 501C4 organization, we’re just working to get on the ballot. But I do think generally speaking, you see a growing appetite for something different from American voters. It is so obvious. And I think one of the mistakes that both parties are making is, you think about that number you put up earlier, 60% plus, they think it was a failure if we had a rematch of 2020.
If we had a functioning political system, the parties would adjust to that and they would give the public something they actually want. I think the problem we’re in now is that on some level both parties don’t even think they need to give us good choices anymore. They just figure in the end, you’ll hate and fear the person on the other side more and you’ll come home and vote for us. That’s part of the reason why there’s such an opening for, and an appetite for, what No Labels might be offering.
Bogan: Gallup had a poll that came out earlier this year that showed 41% of Americans identify as political independents. In the 31 states that report voters’ party affiliations — 38% are Democrats, 29% are Republicans and 28% are independents. People say how can a third-party candidate ever get enough support, but with that statistic in mind, why isn’t there a major independent candidate more often?
Clancy: Well, interestingly enough, that Gallup finding you cited, it was 41% earlier in the year, the latest reading on that is 47%. And interestingly enough, if you go back 30 years ago, when Ross Perot ran, that was the last time there was really a serious third alternative in the race. Only about 32-33% of Americans considered themselves as Independents at that time.
So you see this vast expansion in the universe of people who don’t want to affiliate themselves with the major parties, you see their dissatisfaction with the likely presidential nominees they’re gonna get. And then of course, you just have the broader attitude in the country where you look at things where people say, you know, only 16% of people trust the federal government to do the right thing. That’s the lowest reading and 70 years.
Seventy-eight percent of the public doesn’t think their kids are going to be better off than they are. That’s the worst reading in 40 years. And so there’s so much out there to suggest that the public is desperate for something different. In a lot of ways it shouldn’t surprise anybody that there’s this level of support for a No Labels offering, given the broader attitudes we’re seeing in the country and the dissatisfaction they have with our political system.
Bogan: Recently it was reported that Mitt Romney has been considering forming a new party that wouldn’t have its own candidate. He was quoted as saying, “This party’s going to endorse whichever party’s nominee isn’t stupid.” What do you make of the strategy of seeking to promote a candidate that is already running rather than entering your own candidate?
Clancy: You know, that’s actually the first I’ve heard of that. I mean, I had heard he retired last week. But look, you do see a lot of, in any marketplace, when there’s an opening, you see a lot of people come in and try to fill that.
So you saw last year, that the Forward Party, that is a new political party that’s trying to be created from the ground up. Obviously, Senator Romney’s looking to create something there. I mean, that famous saying that, you know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
I think that’s how Americans feel about our politics right now. They know if we have a repeat of this election, it is not going to solve the underlying divisions that we have in the country. And it is not going to let us tackle the problems that desperately need solving. You think about our immigration system, you think about our budget situation, that is only going to get solved with Republicans and Democrats at the table working together. And that’s why No Labels ultimately is considering putting this offer on the table early next year.
