'Bargaining chip': How No Labels’ 'radical new plan' could 'ensure a second Trump term'

25 October 2023

DC-based nonprofit No Labels has threatened to run an independent presidential candidate on its own ballot line in 2024. But one Democratic-aligned group is alleging this plan is simply an underhanded attempt to end-run democracy and send Donald Trump to the White House for a second term.

Third Way, a center-left think tank, published a memo on Tuesday sounding the alarm over No Labels' plans to run its own candidate. The group's researchers pointed out that No Labels CEO Nancy Jacobson told the New York Times the group would run a moderate Republican in 2024, which Third Way states would siphon off moderate Republicans who would be more likely to vote for President Joe Biden than likely Republican nominee Donald Trump.

"No Labels has made clear that their new plan is to put a Republican at the top of their ticket," Third Way wrote. "And because they can’t win the presidency outright, they’ve indicated that their intention now is to exercise leverage over the winner by denying both major parties 270 Electoral College Votes (ECVs). That radical new plan would ensure a second Trump term."

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As The New Republic's Matt Ford pointed out in a Wednesday essay, No Labels' plan to deny 270 electoral college votes to Biden and Trump would automatically trigger a contingent election in the House of Representatives, as the US Constitution stipulates. In this scenario, each state's Congressional delegation would get one vote apiece, including Wyoming's lone at-large member and California's 53-member delegation. Because Republicans have a slight edge in state delegations, this would almost certainly mean Trump would win a contingent election and reclaim the White House.

Ford theorized that No Labels could achieve this goal by running a moderate Republican like former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan specifically in swing states that Biden won in 2020 by the thinnest of margins like Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin. In Georgia, for example, Biden's margin of victory over Trump was just 0.23%, or 11,779 total votes. Biden won Arizona's 16 electoral votes by just 0.31%, or 10,457 votes. And he won 10 electoral votes in Wisconsin by a 0.63% margin, winning just 20,682 more votes than Trump. Theoretically, a No Labels candidate could force a contingent election by earning less than 50,000 votes across three states.

The last time a contingent election resulted in a different president than the one who won a plurality of electoral college votes was in 1824. Ford pointed out that John Quincy Adams only defeated Andrew Jackson in the House of Representatives after Kentucky's Henry Clay threw his support behind Adams.

"In the 1824 presidential election, a presidential candidate needed 131 electoral votes to win outright," Ford wrote. "The states ultimately gave electoral votes to four candidates: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William Crawford. Jackson received a plurality of electoral votes and popular votes. But Clay threw his support behind Adams, and their combined blocs of states gave Adams a majority over Jackson."

While No Labels expresses that it is in favor of giving voters a different option from Democrats and Republicans in 2024, The New Republic noted that the group received $100,000 from right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow, the notorious benefactor of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. The group also received money from investor Drew McKnight, who has done business in the past with Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to The New Republic.

No Labels has not yet announced their chosen candidate for 2024, though Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) has recently flirted with the idea.

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