This right-wing consulting firm is fighting to put No Labels on the ballot

07 December 2023

Critics of No Labels, including the conservative Lincoln Project, have been arguing that if they run a presidential candidate in 2024, the group could act as a spoiler and put GOP frontrunner Donald Trump back in the White House.

The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson, a former GOP strategist and outspoken Never Trumper who is supporting President Joe Biden, has been especially scathing — slamming No Labels as a "cynical ploy in service to Trump and the MAGA GOP." Meanwhile, liberal economist Robert Reich has slammed No Labels as a "front group" for Trump.

In a report published on November 7, The New Republic's Tori Otten describes No Labels' work with a right-wing consulting firm.

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"Although No Labels has refused to disclose who its financial backers are," Otten reports, "it must file public tax returns. Its tax documents for 2022 reveal that the group paid almost $2.2 million to Capitol Advisors, a Virginia-based consulting firm owned by Michael Arno."

Arno, Otten notes, is a "longtime consultant who specializes in ballot access," adding that "many of his previous clients have been much farther to the right than No Labels purports to be."

"In 2017," according to Otten, "Arno worked for the Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, who made a name for himself in part by embracing white nationalism and the Confederacy…. Stewart's campaign paid Arno's California-based firm Arno Petition Consultants $47,975 for various services, including door-knocking and petitioning for Stewart as a candidate…. Arno Petition Consultants also provided ballot access consulting to Ted Cruz and Rand Paul when the senators ran for president in 2016…. In 2005, the conservative Christian organization Massachusetts Family Institute hired Arno Petition Consultants to help get an initiative on the state ballot to ban same-sex marriage."

Otten points out that No Labels has "accepted more than $100,000 from" billionaire Harlan Crow, known for his close ties to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

"No Labels may say that it is nonpartisan, moderate, and a source of unity," Otten argues, "but they continue to show their true colors through the people they choose for their team — and it's not good."

The New Republic's full report is available at this link.

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