Messaging Guidance on No Labels' Third-Party Threat

Main Argument: No Labels is offering an illusion, not a choice. They cannot win, but they can help re-elect Trump.

• The map of their supposed path to victory is not credible. They are claiming they can win in places like Massachusetts, Vermont, Maryland — states Joe Biden won by 30 points or more. They say they can win Biden’s home state of Delaware. They won’t. Their map is a fantasy.
• No one has ever come close to winning as a third party, including a guy carved into Mt. Rushmore. But they can be a spoiler as we’ve seen over and over.
• Their own poll shows a third-party candidate turns a virtual tie in a Biden-Trump head-to-head into a 5-point Trump victory in a three-way race. The No Labels ticket is a distant third place.
• No Labels is completely alone in their assessment that their ticket would hurt both sides equally. Independent experts agree they will hurt Joe Biden, an accomplished moderate, and re-elect Donald Trump.
• If they truly don’t want to be a spoiler, No Labels should stand down now.

Claims and Rebuttals

If they mention No Labels’ December 2022 poll saying a majority of voters want another option…

• Their own poll shows that the No Labels ticket hands Trump a five-point advantage. Their candidate comes in third in a three-way race, with Trump beating Biden. That is the definition of a spoiler.
• And more recent polling shows that when an actual candidate with positions and history is named, their ceiling is much lower – a third-party candidate barely gets beyond the single digits.

If they say that this is a unique moment that could allow them to win because 63% of voters said in their poll that they would “consider” a moderate independent third choice…

• Openness to a third party is in line with where it’s been for decades. But that has never translated into a winning third-party ticket.
• But it’s much more telling who voters say that they would vote for and every horse-race poll—including No Labels’ own poll—shows that their ticket is a distant third and spoils the election in favor of Trump.
• The high-water mark was in 1992, when 59% said they were open to other choices. But Ross Perot got just 18.9% of the vote—40 points lower than the CBS poll finding on openness—and he failed to win a single electoral vote.

If they say that their ticket will draw equally from both sides…

• If that's true, why aren’t Republicans worried? There's no handwringing at the RNC or in MAGA world because they know that this hurts Biden more than Trump.
• No Labels wants to imagine that it’s still 1992. Moderate voters are a vital part of today’s winning Democratic coalition and no one knows that better than Joe Biden. Democrats now need a larger share of the pool of moderate voters because conservatives outnumber liberals by 14 points.
• Biden won double haters, voters who don’t like either candidate, by 15 points in 2020. Trump’s voters are more dogmatic and less likely to peel away. 
• And with a decline in third-party voting from 2016 to 2020, Johnson/Stein voters broke for Biden by more than 30 points, helping Biden win the blue wall states even though Trump’s vote share actually increased. 
• Again, No Labels’ own polling showed that it was Democrats, liberals, and urban voters who were more open to an independent candidate than Republican voters.

If they say that Biden and Trump are too extreme...

• They are drawing a profound false equivalency between Trump and Biden. Biden is a moderate who’s signed 7 bipartisan bills. No Labels claims he has “done nothing for moderates” while trying to take credit for those accomplishments.
• And they have said that both Biden and Trump “face very serious legal troubles.” That’s absurd. Trump faces 91 felonies, Biden has zero.

If they say they haven’t decided on running a candidate…

• They may not want to talk about it now, but there are growing rumblings that they will put a Republican at the top of the ticket. Chris Christie said that No Labels approached him. Fred Upton told CBS News last week they want to nominate a Republican president at the top of the ticket. Bob Corker said the same thing.
• And No Labels has said that they would stand down if Ron DeSantis is the Republican nominee. So it’s pretty clear, this is about attacking Biden and helping Republicans.
• That’s why Republicans are either quiet or supportive of this third-party bid. Hugh Hewitt recently said he wants No Labels to prosper and “drain votes from Democrats.”
• They ran ads attacking Brad Schneider, a moderate Democratic Problem Solver, for saying this is a dangerous plan. The only Democrats who support this idea are being paid by No Labels.

If they say they have offramps to avoid being a spoiler…

• Based on March 2024 polling…Spring polls are massively unreliable predictors of election results. To use No Labels’ favorite example, Ross Perot polled at 24% in the spring but lost ground by the election and won zero electoral votes. No Labels wants to risk the republic on a predictor less reliable than a Magic 8 ball.
• That they can pull the plug as late as the summer 2024…This makes absolutely no sense. They are planning to nominate a ticket in April, and after they put them on the ballot in dozens of states, they can’t stop them from running. 

If they say they are fighting for democracy and choice and that their opponents are anti-democratic…

• No Labels is undermining our democracy:

1. They are a political party that does not play by the rules. Using a legal loophole to keep your donors secret and allow them to give unlimited amounts of money is not how campaigns are supposed to work.
2. They are credibly accused of duping voters into disenfranchising themselves. Nearly 1,000 voters in Maine have come forward to say they were misled into changing their party registration by No Labels.
3. The No Labels Party’s nomination will be determined by insiders and donors. In a stark contrast to the tens of millions of voters choosing major party candidates, No Labels is considering handing their nomination to “five to ten highly respected national leaders,” a convention of 2,000 delegates, and even limiting voting to members who have contributed to the group.
4. They are preparing to throw the presidential election to the House in a “contingent election.”
5. They are spreading misinformation, falsely suggesting that Biden and Trump are equally extreme.

• Worst of all, they will re-elect Donald Trump, who has made clear his intention to destroy the pillars of our democracy.

If they say that they have a path to win…

• Independent analysts all conclude they can’t win and would hurt Biden.
  • Amy Walter (Cook Report): How Seriously Should We Take a Potential No Labels Candidate?(The effort is not serious.)
  • FiveThirtyEight: No Labels Is Chasing A Fantasy and Why A Third-Party Candidate Might Help Trump – And Spoil The Election For Biden (Support No Labels has now is a ceiling, not a floor.)
  • Harry Enten (CNN): Why Biden worries about a third-party rival in 2024(Biden loses ground to Trump when a third-party is available.)
  • Mark Murray (NBC News): The stark numbers driving Democratic panic about a third-party 2024 bid (Biden won because there weren’t serious third-party candidates in 2020.)
  • Sabato’s Crystal Ball: Electoral College Ratings: Expect Another Highly Competitive Election (“A No Labels could provide an outlet for moderate/conservative voters.”)

If they say we need an agenda and leader that is focused on bipartisan results…

• Even David Brooks has changed his mind on this effort, noting that there’s already a moderate in the White House. 
• How do they go around claiming the president has done “nothing for moderates” when he delivered a bipartisan deal to prevent default, he passed a major infrastructure bill supported by both Problem Solvers and Mitch McConnell, a bipartisan CHIPS bill, the first bipartisan gun safety legislation in decades, and an Inflation Reduction Act bill negotiated by their co-chair Joe Manchin?
• The agenda No Labels released dodges taking a position on revenues, abortion, and continues their bogus both-sidesism on election security. They also blatantly omit Biden’s successes on issues they mention, like a 70% reduction in border crossings, IRA funding to strengthen supply chains for critical minerals, setting an ambitious civilian nuclear agenda, and global leadership to outfox Putin and rebuild and expand NATO.
• No Labels should have the guts to stick to their principles and back the obvious moderate in the race: Joe Biden.

If they argue that they’re doing this because Biden can’t beat Trump…

• No Labels is asking us to believe that an incumbent president with 7 bipartisan bills to his name can’t win, but their candidate can do what no one has ever come close to doing. That’s a very, very bad bet.

Additional Resources

Third Way’s overview on why No Labels is a spoiler that helps Trump:
https://www.thirdway.org/memo/the-no-labels-third-party-bid-a-plan-that-will-re-elect-trump

Third Way memo on their fantasy electoral map:
https://www.thirdway.org/memo/the-no-labels-third-party-bid-a-plan-that-will-re-elect-trump

Third Way critique of No Labels’ “Common Sense” agenda:
https://www.thirdway.org/memo/dodgeball-analyzing-the-no-labels-common-sense-agenda

Third Way memo on what Biden and Democrats have accomplished for moderates:
https://www.thirdway.org/memo/what-joe-biden-has-done-for-moderates