by Frank Holmes, reporter
Democrats are biting their fingernails about the outcome of the 2024 presidential race—and they’ll be getting more bad news in just two days.
The Biden-Harris team knows things already look dim. Republicans lead in the upcoming election’s swing states. Biden’s favorability rating reached an all-time low. And congressional Republicans keep turning up new revelations about the Biden family’s foreign finances all the time.
As bad as things are, Biden’s team has settled in for a long bout against President Donald Trump…but they forgot something, and on Thursday, they’ll be forced to remember it.
Upwards of 70 percent of Americans say they do not want a 2020 rematch…and on Thursday, the presidential race is about to change.
The third party group No Labels announced it will have a huge announcement in two days about a new presidential candidate.
Last Friday, the party held a virtual convention of around 800 delegates from all 50 states about whether they wanted to go forward with fielding their own presidential candidate—something the movement has debated, and declined, every election for more than a decade.
This time, they’re pulling the trigger.
“They voted near unanimously to continue our 2024 project and to move immediately to identify candidates to serve on the Unity presidential ticket. Every one of our delegates had their own explanation for wanting to move ahead,” announced Mike Rawlings, the No Labels convention chair and the former mayor of Dallas.
“Now that No Labels has received the go-ahead from our delegates, we’ll be accelerating our candidate outreach and announcing the process for how the candidate will be selected for the Unity Ticket on Thursday, March 14.”
Statement from Mike Rawlings, No Labels National Convention Chair: pic.twitter.com/OshcvXrlNm
— No Labels (@NoLabelsOrg) March 8, 2024
As of this writing, the party has not settled on a candidate, or even a process for nominating a candidate—but the latter part will change in two days.
Thus far, No Labels has made more news for the people who have refused its nomination than those interested in it.
First, it was Senator Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who retired from the Senate this year and went so far as to hold a No Labels event with former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican.
But then Manchin backed away from the nomination. Most recently, he got confronted by a climate change activist who barged into a meeting and screamed in his face, “You sick f—k! How dare you!”
Manchin jumped to his feet to defend himself…but he’s not standing for higher officer this time.
Honestly the coolest thing Manchin has ever done. If he ran no labels with this ad he'd enter with 25%, pic.twitter.com/qeSJE1vdID
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) March 2, 2024
Then No Labels let slip the fact that they were interested in failed 2024 Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley.
“Haley would deserve serious consideration. But that’s a decision for her to make,” said No Labels Co-chairman Joe Lieberman.
But Haley ruled out a second losing presidential bid with No Labels, turning them down flat.
“I know that they have sent, like, smoke signals that they want me to talk to them, but I’m a Republican,” Haley replied. “If I were to do No Labels, that would require a Democratic vice president. I can’t do what I want to do as president with a Democratic vice president.”
No Labels also approached two other Republican governors who have strained relationships with Donald Trump.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan turned htem down, launching a Senate campaign instead.
No Labels also sidled up to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, but Kemp didn’t take the bait.
No Labels Considering Georgia Republican Geoff Duncan to Lead ‘Unity’ Presidential Ticket @kristinapet @cammcwhirter https://t.co/CbzaUJ50KK
— Ken Thomas (@KThomasDC) March 8, 2024
WSJ reports No Labels is currently considering Kemp’s former lieutenant governor, Geoff Duncan, a Republican who has lashed out at Donald Trump publicly and said the Republican Party needs a new image as a post-Trump “GOP 2.0.”
The party has one ace left up its sleeve: It has put out feelers to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who shut down his quest for the Republican nomination in January…and he hasn’t decided.
When Good Morning America asked Christie if he would consider reentering the presidential race under their banner, he replied, “Oh, I don’t know. There’d be a long conversation between me and (his wife) Mary Pat, I can guarantee you that.”
That’s not a no.
Maybe that’s why he secretly skewered Haley’s position as the anti-Trump candidate, saying on a hot mic that “she’s about to get smoked” in the New Hampshire primaries, because “she isn’t up to this.”
Maybe he wanted to carry the anti-Trump baton in the election instead.
The anti-Trump movement is taking criticism from all sides. It’s a socially liberal party that supports nearly open borders and more gun control.
“No Labels = The Uniparty,” said conservative and constitutionalist Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah.
No Labels = The Uniparty™️
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) March 9, 2024
But the group is also taking crossfire from the Left, because Democrats worry it will act as a “spoiler” to cost Joe Biden a second term.
Former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Reich, a radical left-winger, claimed the group is “a dark money front group for Donald Trump.”
The so-called "moderate" group No Labels announced that it will run a third-party bid in the 2024 presidential election.
Reminder that No Labels isn't some kind of "movement to mobilize the middle."
It's a dark money front group for Donald Trump. Watch. pic.twitter.com/YUJ8C7Piap
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) March 11, 2024
But it’s not clear a group headed by Chris Christie is a “front group for Donald Trump.”
Whoever the group nominates, Biden will face a huge crop of third party challengers, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein.
Donald Trump has a commanding lead and the support of the vast majority of Republicans.
No Labels might just upend the presidential election for Joe Biden. Their announcement in two days may cost Biden the chance to serve two terms.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”