"No labels"

if not now, when?

With so many Americans saying they don’t want a Biden-Trump rematch, but with that rematch looming, the time seems right for the “No Labels” group, formed back in 2010, finally to make serious headway. And that outfit is trying to seize the moment. Recently, it announced its intention to place a third-party candidate on the ballot in every state, and it sponsored a New Hampshire town hall featuring Joe Manchin and Jon Huntsman — a potential No Labels ticket.

What should we make of No Labels? I’ve always had a hard time getting past its name, which I consider absurd. Maybe that’s because the people I know who claim they can’t be labeled usually turn out to be liberals trying to gain credibility by posing as non-partisans.

What does No Labels mean, anyway? If it means that labels are only that and have no real substance (a kind of updated version of medieval nominalist philosophy), that’s ridiculous. To correctly label a politician “progressive” is to tell us at least 90 percent of what we need to know about the positions he or she takes.

In the Trump era, the label “conservative” tells us less than that. Yet, it still provides plenty of information about what positions a politician rejects.

Does No Labels mean that the group won’t support politicians who are correctly labeled one thing or another? No. Joe Manchin has a valid label — centrist or moderate.

Does No Labels mean that a given position shouldn’t be rejected outright because it carries a certain label? That’s obvious. We don’t need an organization to uphold this proposition.

But just because the “No Labels” label is vacuous doesn’t mean the organization is. Yet, some (especially anti- or never-Trumpers) are dismissing the group on the ground that its positions are mush.

I don’t agree with this criticism. Consider the following positions that No Labels has taken:

The government must stop releasing undocumented migrants into the country. But the government must also broaden legal immigration channels and offer a path to citizenship to those brought to the country as children.

The constitutional right to bear arms is inviolable but must be tempered with universal background checks and age restrictions on the purchase of military-style semiautomatic rifles.

A woman must have a right to control her reproductive health, but that right has to be balanced with society’s obligation to safeguard human life.

In each case, as the New York Times says, the No Labels position “will anger conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats but could please the less activist center.”

To be sure, these statements of principle would have to be fleshed out in a campaign. The statement on abortion, in particular, needs some meat on the bones.

But that meat shouldn’t be difficult to supply. A No Labels candidate might argue against bans on abortion at six weeks, on the one hand, and against late term abortions on the other, but support a ban at, say, 15 weeks either at the state or the federal level.

If so, the No Labels candidate’s position on abortion might well have as much support as the position of his two rivals.

Indeed, the Times finds that the No Labels manifesto “is stuffed with poll-tested proposals” including some “that would require major shifts for both parties.” No such shifts are likely in the 2024 campaign.

The Times continues:

Universal background checks for firearm purchases have been blocked by Republicans since the proposal emerged with Mr. Manchin’s name on it after the massacre at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

Most Democrats will find the document’s glancing reference to climate change unsatisfying, especially since it couples support for a domestic renewable energy industry with an adamant opposition to restrictions on domestic fossil fuel production.

The policy proposals call out Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden by name for pledging not to cut Social Security benefits, as it warns that the public pension system is nearing insolvency. Its solution to the thorny question is more a guideline: No one at or near retirement should face a benefit cut, nor should middle-class or lower-income Americans.

In citing these positions and suggesting they have resonance, I don’t mean to signal my support for them. My point, instead, is that No Labels has a political opening —not only because of the unpopularity of Biden and Trump, but also because both parties have moved far away from the center, to the point that potential support for a third party does not depend entirely on the identity of the two major party candidates. No Labels might have a serious place in a DeSantis vs. Newsom presidential race.

This brings us to the big questions: How much support would a No Labels candidate like Joe Manchin actually obtain in a Biden-Trump race, and which major party candidate would benefit?

A Quinnipiac poll reports that 47 percent of American voters are willing to consider a third-party presidential candidate in 2024. Independents said by more than 2 to 1 (64 – 30 percent) that they would consider voting for a third-party candidate.

Most Democrats, by a split of 61 – 35 percent, and most Republicans, by a split of 57 – 38 percent, said they would not consider it. But when more than a third of voters in both parties say they’re willing to consider a third-party candidate, that’s interesting.

It’s a long way, of course, from being willing to consider an unidentified third-party candidate in July 2023 and actually voting for a particular candidate in November 2024. As Ed Morrissey points out:

Third-party bids always look attractive in theory, which is the real flaw in such polls that use them. To ask the question is to beg the answer, especially this far out and with no candidate to compare against the two presumed frontrunners for the nomination. . . .

If Quinnipiac polls on a three way race that specifically includes Joe Manchin and he gets 47% of the respondents’ support, then we can take this somewhat seriously. Otherwise, it’s basically a polling query that asks voters to choose Biden, Trump, or none of the above. In this case especially, is anyone surprised that NOTA is a popular choice?

Ed thinks it’s likely that, at the end of the day, support for a third party option wouldn’t surpass 5 percent:

Does that mean Americans won’t choose a third party option, assuming one becomes available? Some will, but it won’t amount to 47% or probably even a tenth of that.

The last serious bid for a third-party presidency came from Ross Perot, who got 19% of the popular vote and won precisely zero states despite a lot of money and time spent on building the Reform Party organization in 1992. Perot was a true outsider to the partisan system as well, not a retread Democrat or Republican politico. Perot poured a lot of his own money into the race and did extensive campaigning on pertinent issues, but still couldn’t convince enough voters to break out of the major-party paradigm to even get a single Electoral College elector.

I could see a candidate like Joe Manchin exceeding 5 percent in a race against Biden and Trump. Some voters would support Manchin out of disdain for these two. Some, as I suggested above, might support him because of agreement on the issues. But it’s difficult for me to see Manchin winning anywhere close to Perot’s 19 percent.

As to which party would suffer, the Quinnipiac numbers suggest that a third party candidacy might well be a wash. However, the political class seems convinced, and horrified, that it would harm Biden.

Again, I’ll quote the New York Times:

The coalition opposing the No Labels effort — which already includes Third Way, the progressive group MoveOn.org, the Democratic opposition research firm American Bridge and the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, formed by Republican consultants — will be joined next week by a bipartisan coalition headed by Richard A. Gephardt, a former Democratic House leader. . . .

Polling conducted by an outside firm for Mr. Gephardt appeared to indicate that a candidate deemed moderate, independent and bipartisan could not win the presidency but would do great damage to Mr. Biden’s re-election effort. In a national survey by the Prime Group, a Democratic-leaning public opinion research and messaging firm, Mr. Biden would beat Mr. Trump by about the same popular vote margin he won in 2020. But were a centrist third-party candidate to enter the race, that candidate could take a much greater share of voters from Mr. Biden than from Mr. Trump.

The same group surveyed seven swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and found that Mr. Trump would win three of those states in a head-to-head matchup with Mr. Biden, Mr. Biden two. In two of the states, Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump would essentially tie, according to the survey.

Polling aside, it’s easy to see why Democrats and Never Trumpers are spooked by the prospect of a third party run. Ralph Nader and Jill Stein, outsiders with little support (less than 3 percent for Nader and about 1 percent for Stein) both siphoned off votes from Democrats in the extremely close elections of 2000 and 2016, which Republicans won.

However, it may be worth noting that Nader and Stein were running from the left, not the center. A Manchin candidacy would siphon off a fair number of votes from both major parties.

I don’t know whether, in fact, a third-party run by Manchin or someone like him would harm Joe Biden. But if Democrats are horrified by this possibility, they should consider ditching Biden in favor of a candidate whom Democrats, at least, are enthusiastic about.