NEW YORK — The No Labels group said Thursday it will not field a presidential candidate in November after strategists at the bipartisan organization failed to attract a candidate willing to tap into widespread dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
“No Labels has always said we would only offer a ballot if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House,” Nancy Jacobson, the group’s CEO, said in a statement. “Such candidates have not come forward, so the responsible course of action is for us to resign.”
The decision ends months of discussions for No Labels, which has raised tens of millions of dollars from a donor list it has kept secret. While the decision will disappoint people looking for a potentially viable third-party option, it will come as a relief to Democrats who long accused the group of effectively helping Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.
It also reinforces a rematch in this fall’s general election between the Democratic incumbent and the former president. Many voters do not have a positive view of Biden and Trump, a dynamic that No Labels had tried to address.
The Wall Street Journal first reported No Labels’ decision.
No Labels delegates voted overwhelmingly in March to launch the process of creating a bipartisan presidential and vice-presidential ticket. But by then, No Labels had been publicly and privately rejected by many Democratic and Republican candidates.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who last month suspended her campaign for the Republican Party nomination, had said she would not consider running on the No Labels ticket. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., ruled out running and former Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md., decided to run for the U.S. Senate.
Last month, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican candidate for president in 2024, said he would also not run under the No Label banner.
The group had considered appointing a “unity ticket,” with a presidential candidate from one major party and a vice presidential candidate from the other, to appeal to voters unhappy with Biden and Trump.
Biden supporters worried that No Labels would draw votes away from the president in battleground states and were critical of how the group would not reveal its donors or much about its decision-making. No Labels never named all its delegates and most deliberations took place in secret.
