The centrist group No Labels is redirecting its political plans for the 2024 election after it abandoned a third-party ticket.
Leaders of No Labels hosted a Zoom call Friday afternoon with more than 1,000 delegates, just one day after the group ended its efforts to launch a unity ticket to challenge President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump ahead of their likely Nov. 5 showdown.
The group’s efforts faced heavy criticism from both Republicans and Democrats. But leaders remain undaunted as they prepare for November.
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“Today is the beginning of the next phase of our movement. We’re stronger now than we’ve ever been, and our country needs us more than ever before,” said Nancy Jacobson, No Labels’s founder and CEO. “And as we plan for our future, we want to hear the ideas of everyone on this call. And we’ll be scheduling smaller regional calls in the weeks ahead to hear from all of you.”
Jacobson claimed there would be future announcements of what comes next but was light on the exact details.
Before Thursday’s surprise news, several leaders from both mainstream political parties declined to join the ticket, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), former GOP Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, former GOP South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and former GOP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
No Labels also had to contend with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has emerged as the chief third-party rival as the group floundered.
Former Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, who serves as No Labels’s director of the ballot integrity project, said the group will focus on two key goals simultaneously moving forward to the election.
“We will do all in our power … over the next seven months to ensure that the major candidates compete for commonsense voters rather than speaking solely to their respective party bases,” Nixon said. “This means that defining the issues this movement stands for border security, spending, the cost of living, supporting our allies abroad, all of that commonsense agenda.”
Nixon echoed the other No Labels leaders who spoke and called for the group to move beyond the disappointment in not creating a unity ticket and instead look to the future.
“We need to do what all successful movements do,” he added. “Get back to basics, focus on grassroots, excel at issues advocacy, call our congressmen and senators, meet our local congressional candidates and tell them what we expect of them.”
Former Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, who serves as No Labels’s national convention chairman, offered more clarity to delegates surrounding the leaked news that the group would end its efforts to gain ballot access in all 50 states.
Rawlings cited the death of founding No Labels chairman and former Democratic Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who died last week.
“Honoring the Jewish tradition Aninut, we decided to not meet as a leadership team till the first of this week,” Rawlings said. “It was decided to take this action we’re talking about today, get [it] to you this week. So informing that discussion and those words to the press to you — it was leaked yesterday. So everybody quickly jumped. … Sorry, that happens.”
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Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, No Labels’s national co-chairman, claimed the failure to find a presidential and vice presidential candidate to lead the unity ticket was not for a lack of effort.
“At the end of the day, the hero we needed did not emerge,” Chavis said. “Today, we are stronger as a movement to have gone through this. We learned a great deal. And that will be valuable as we continue our work.”
