No Labels Abandons Effort to Run Presidential Campaign in 2024 Election

The centrist group laid out grand ambitions of running a third-party candidate in a Biden-Trump contest, but the most prominent figures it courted all said no. The centrist group No Labels had sought to recruit high-profile Republicans and Democrats to run on its ticket, but they were unsuccessful.Credit…Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times April […]

No Labels Abandons Effort to Run Presidential Campaign in 2024 Election

No Labels Abandons Effort to Run Presidential Campaign in 2024 Election thumbnail

The centrist group laid out grand ambitions of running a third-party candidate in a Biden-Trump contest, but the most prominent figures it courted all said no.

Officials with the centrist group No Labels during a news conference in Washington. One person stands at a lectern and others sit at a table.
The centrist group No Labels had sought to recruit high-profile Republicans and Democrats to run on its ticket, but they were unsuccessful.Credit…Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Rebecca Davis O’BrienReid J. Epstein

The centrist group No Labels has abandoned its plans to run a presidential ticket in the 2024 election, having failed to recruit a candidate, its leader, Nancy Jacobson, said on Thursday.

The group, which said last year it had raised $60 million to put forward what it called a bipartisan “unity ticket,” had suffered a string of rejections in recent months as prominent Republicans and Democrats declined to run on its ticket. The group had told donors and members that it would put forward a candidate if President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump were the main parties’ nominees.

“Today, No Labels is ending our effort to put forth a Unity ticket in the 2024 presidential election,” Ms. Jacobson said in a statement. “Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run and hungrier for unifying national leadership than ever before. But No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House. No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down.”

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the decision by No Labels to forgo a presidential campaign.

The group’s decision to bow out of the race means one less outsider campaign for the major parties to worry about, in a presidential field that has several independent and third-party candidates. Democrats had worried last year that No Labels could pull votes away from Mr. Biden, but those concerns have more recently focused on the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Reid J. Epstein covers campaigns and elections from Washington. Before joining The Times in 2019, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. More about Reid J. Epstein