Centrist group says it won’t run third-party candidate against Biden and Trump

Group searching for independent alternative to 2024 major-party nominees ends effort in failure

Donald Trump and Joe Biden are their respective parties’ presumed nominees (REUTERS)

The centrist group No Labels announced that it was ending its bid to generate support for a third-party bid for the 2024 presidential election cycle, ending a number of headaches for the Biden re-election campaign.

Members of the group, who had faced calls to disclose the fundraising backing the effort, said in a statement on Thursday that while Americans supposedly remain “open” to the concept of a third-party candidate, they had been unable to identify a credible and willing figure to take up that mantle.

“Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run, and hungrier for unifying national leadership, than ever before. But No Labels has always said that we would only offer our ballot line if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House. No such candidates emerged,” read the organisation’s press release.

The group had just days ago announced ballot access in Wyoming, the 19th state to allow the No Labels line to appear as a choice for voters in 2024. That announcement was the culmination of months of work and millions of dollars spent by the group in states across the country.

For many of those months, the group had been conducting outreach to prominent centrist politicians in America including former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. Mr Manchin is retiring from the US Senate this year, while Mr Hogan opted to run for a seat opening up in his home state after stoking speculation about a presidential bid for some time.

Now, it remains clearer than ever: Americans are set for a rematch of the 2020 election, complete with Green Party candidate Dr Jill Stein and the controversy-magnet Robert F Kennedy Jr as his only “high-profile” opposition. An effort to encourage other Democrats to run against Mr Biden died with the campaign of Dean Phillips earlier this year, while Mr Trump fought off a handful of his own Republican rivals, only losing one state to Nikki Haley in his own party’s primary race.

Polling indicates significant numbers of Americans are dissatisfied with both likely choices for the 2024 presidential election even as every politician attempting to unseat them has bowed out.