Potential 2024 candidates keep saying no, but No Labels is pressing forward anyway

No Labels is still working to find its dream third-party presidential ticket for 2024 — but there’s a hitch: It keeps getting turned down.

The deep-pocketed centrist group once envisioned a vigorous public competition to join its ticket, which it planned to put on the ballot in all 50 states. Instead, it has been spurned by at least a dozen prominent figures from across the ideological spectrum and secured ballot access in just 17 states so far, despite having said it hoped to be on 27 state ballots by the end of last year.

Among the Republicans who have said no after approaches from the group: former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, according to public statements and sources familiar with their responses. The group was still trying to lure Sununu to the ticket within the last two weeks as Sununu, an avowed critic of former President Donald Trump, fell in line behind Trump, the GOP’s presumptive nominee.

No Labels had also openly suggested that it was interested in former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who shut down any openness to running on a third-party ticket in an interview early this month.

On the Democratic side, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick declined No Labels’ entreaties, as did Democratic-turned-independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. The group also engaged with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Image: Sen. Joe Manchin III Headlines No Labels Event in New Hampshire (John Tully for The Washington Post via Getty Images file)

Well-known non-politicians like businessman Mark Cuban and retired Navy Adm. William McRaven did not reciprocate interest from No Labels, either. No Labels’ search has gone far and wide — it even tried to make overtures to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

The latest rejection, on Monday, came from former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, an anti-Trump Republican who had been reported to be under consideration to lead the No Labels ticket. But Duncan told The Atlanta Journal Constitution that he withdrew himself from consideration to instead focus on “healing and improving the Republican Party.”

No Labels’ recruiting trouble illustrates a paradox at the heart of its plans: Founder and CEO Nancy Jacobson believed conditions were ripe for her to create a third-party, independent presidential ticket more potent than any in the last century — one that would galvanize masses of Americans disenchanted with both Trump and President Joe Biden.

Yet the actual people whom No Labels leaders might like to put on that ticket are repeatedly brushing off the group, not seeing the same degree of opportunity. The rejections are slowing, but not stopping, the group’s plan to put forward a ticket anyway and its insistence that a path to victory exists.

“This is Nancy’s decision, and her decision alone. If she wants a ticket, we’re getting a ticket,” said a source familiar with the group’s internal deliberations.

No Labels did not respond to questions seeking comment for this article.

Downscaling plans

Over the course of the 2024 election cycle, No Labels’ ultimate goal has stayed the same — but it has pulled back on a number of its big plans along the way.

No Labels had planned to launch a bus tour in key states this spring that would have featured multiple potential candidates. The group even intended to host debates among those prospects angling for the chance to appear under its banner.

It was all supposed to culminate in April with a major national convention in Dallas that was to rival this summer’s Democratic and Republican national conventions.

Jacobson allotted a multimillion-dollar budget to go toward hiring a “best-in-class” production team. No Labels prepared to convene 2,000 “delegates” who would pay their ways to attend in person, according to a source familiar with Jacobson’s intentions for the event.

But by last fall, the group had canceled the Dallas affair.

“They knew they couldn’t get that many” people to come, the source said.

Instead, No Labels now plans to convene its delegates virtually over Zoom. The group says it has amassed 800 delegates, from all 50 states — but it is not clear who most of those designated people are.

The list includes donors and others who have expressed support for No Labels in the past, the group said, but the organization will not publicly release their names and will not allow them to talk to the media.

Last week, No Labels announced a new step in its selection process: a “country over party” committee meant to vet potential candidates. But most of the names of those involved are being kept private, too.

Secrecy has been a feature of No Labels’ entire presidential effort, frustrating some allies and outraging critics who have demanded the group disclose its donors and be more transparent about its selection process.

Internally, Jacobson instituted strict adherence to nondisclosure agreements, preventing employees and others associated with the group from publicly discussing their experiences with No Labels.

“You are constantly being asked to sign NDAs in that organization,” said a person who asked for anonymity, citing agreements that precluded going on the record to speak candidly.

A string of departures

No Labels’ 2024 push has also coincided with a group of staff members’ and supporters’ withdrawing from the organization over concerns about its management and political viability.

Over the past year, No Labels has lost its vice chair, two vice presidents, two national co-chairs, the head of its digital operation, the director of its political field program and more.

Most recently, former co-chair Pat McCrory, the former Republican governor of North Carolina, abruptly stepped down from No Labels this month, soon after having defended the group in national TV interviews.

“If they get that ticket, I’m still convinced they have a shot to win it. If they don’t, then we shouldn’t do it,” McCrory, who remains supportive of No Labels, said in an interview.  “It’s a startup operation, and the cynicism — the people who say it’s not going to work — are the same ones who are fighting it from making it work.”

William Galston, an academic and political operative who helped Jacobson start No Labels in 2010, left the organization last April over his opposition to the presidential ticket operation.

“I do not question the motives or the patriotism or the integrity of anybody involved in this effort,” Galston told NBC News last summer. “My opposition is a simple matter of political analysis. I believe there is a gap between what No Labels wants to do and what its efforts will, in fact, achieve.”

Galston, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution who worked in the Clinton White House, said then that he feared the No Labels effort would end up being a spoiler for Trump.

“I cannot see a serious possibility that an independent, bipartisan, centrist, third-party ticket can succeed and win the presidency,” said Galston, a Democrat. “I fear that despite its intentions to the contrary, if it proceeds, it will end up — it will end up helping Donald Trump.”

Shifting goals

In an interview last summer, Jacobson repeatedly made the case that the No Labels ticket could win the presidency outright. “The only reason to do this is to win,” she said.

But by December, the group had begun shifting expectations, suggesting that a “contingent election” could be a feasible outcome.

In that scenario, the No Labels ticket would snag some states and their Electoral College votes, preventing both Biden and Trump from getting the Electoral College majority needed to win and sending the election to the House of Representatives. No Labels’ leadership said that would then lead either to their ticket’s being chosen by Congress — or to bartering with Trump or Biden for concessions in exchange for the Electoral College votes won by the No Labels ticket.

Critics lambasted that scenario, which has not played out in 200 years, as potentially dangerous, not to mention fanciful.

“I think she’s in a box,” Rick Wilson, the anti-Trump Republican strategist who co-founded the Lincoln Project, said of Jacobson and No Labels’ current situation.

Wilson called Jacobson “a world-class salesman” and noted his group and hers share some donors, so, he said, he was initially interested in her pitch.

But he and other Lincoln Project officials left a briefing last year only more confused, because, he said, officials could not spell out a credible path to the 270 electoral votes.

“I’ve been in politics a long time, and I have never dealt with a combination of mendacity and self-delusion at that scale,” said Wilson, who now sees No Labels a potential spoiler that could help re-elect Trump. “It was all based on lies they told themselves and lies they told everyone else.”

Other critics have taken issue with the numbers No Labels cites to argue its case for electoral viability.

No Labels has consistently turned to one polling firm to make that case: HarrisX, whose parent company is owned by Jacobson’s husband, Mark Penn. Penn’s longtime deputy, Dritan Nesho, has occasionally been described as No Labels’ chief pollster.

“Poll after poll shows that No Labels has no path to the White House but that they’d be a spoiler in favor of Donald Trump,” said Lucy Caldwell, a political strategist who was campaign manager for Republican Joe Walsh in 2020 in an underdog primary effort against Trump. She added: “You have this situation where No Labels is touting this decision on 2024 but not making public [all] the data that they’re relying on to get there, and that’s ’cause the data is not there.”

Joel Searby, a longtime (and now former) Republican political strategist who led a serious effort to recruit potential contenders for a third-party ticket in 2016 alongside Wilson and former Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, suggested that No Labels is likely to be facing intense pressure from its most key financial backers.

“We ran through the whole gamut of trying to find people in 2016, and I’m guessing they’re having a similar problem now: You have very likely a few donors who signed up for an audacious unity ticket. And if they don’t have that, it’ll take a lot of the wind out of their sails on the financial side,” Searby said. His 2016 effort ultimately led to former congressional staffer and CIA agent Evan McMullin, whose independent presidential campaign qualified for the ballot in 11 states.

“If they come with some recently retired senator or governor and act like that’s going to change the game, you’re going to have some donors who say, ‘That’s not what we signed up for,’” Searby continued.

Still, No Labels is pressing forward. Over the weekend, it announced having qualified for the ballot in another state. And it formed a political action committee called TeamUnity2024 last month, according to the Federal Election Commission. The website’s landing page explains to potential donors that all of the money raised into the fund will be transferred over to No Labels nominees, if and when the ticket has been chosen. But there’s a catch.

“In the event a No Labels Nominee is not nominated at the Convention, your contribution will be refunded,” the site says.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com