Why You Shouldn't Trust the No Labels Movement

You oftentimes will hear politicians describe themselves as being a "political independent" when they're in a tough constituency or swing state.  This isn't without reason.  Political independents, according to the most recent Gallup polls, outnumber Republicans and Democrats almost 2-to-1, with 44% identifying as Independents, 28% identifying as Democrats, and 27% identifying as Republicans.  Though this number has fluctuated through the years, the value of political independents cannot be ignored, and this is frequently something that politicians are aware of when they're structuring a campaign.  After all, with those kinds of numbers, in a swing constituency, the person who wins over independents is going to win the election.  This is also why there is consistently a push for third party movements, culminating this year with the push by the mysterious political organization "No Labels" which is spending millions of dollars already trying to put forth a "bipartisan" ticket in 2024 to take advantage of this supposedly independent movement.  But, and I cannot stress it enough, while it could matter, it won't mean that we are about to have an independent president.  I can guarantee our next president, in fact, will be either a Democrat or a Republican.

Third party movements are not new, and in fact they go back centuries, far earlier than either of the two current major parties.  In fact, the Republican Party was once considered to be a "third party" when it was founded in 1854, as at the time the two major parties in the United States were the Whig & Democratic Parties.  Thanks to its anti-slavery views, the Republican Party ended up replacing the old Whig Party to become one of two major political parties in the United States.

Since the 1850's, though, no third party has upset the main party balance between the Democrats & the Republicans.  We have had, it's worth noting, independent politicians who have won major political office in the country in that time frame.  Figures as diverse as Jesse Ventura, Robert La Follette, & Bernie Sanders have all won under third party banners, and we've had a number of publicized independent candidacies for the White House, including campaigns by Teddy Roosevelt, Eugene V. Debs, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, John Anderson, Ross Perot, & Ralph Nader.  None of these men won the White House (and only Roosevelt, Thurmond, & Wallace even won electoral votes), but they did mount campaigns and in many cases ran under the banners of parties like the Green, Socialist, Progressive, & Reform party labels.

But third party bids simply don't work for a variety of factors.  For starters, there's not a great political structure for independent bids.  Most of the men I just listed were either former politicians who initially won under the two-party structure or very rich (in some cases, both), and could use that notoriety as a leg-up in a campaign that still ultimately went nowhere.  Every state has a Democratic Party, every state has a Republican Party, and they all start out a presidential race with ballot access, infrastructure, and local officials to help lay the groundwork for the campaign.  An independent candidacy has none of that-it starts from scratch.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the most successful
modern Independent politician

The more important factor, though, is that most voters, especially modern voters, are not actually Independents, no matter what they say to Gallup...or at least they aren't "swing" voters.  While there are a few politicians today who can demand impressive crossover voting appeal (Susan Collins, Brian Fitzpatrick & Joe Manchin come to mind), ticket-splitting has largely gone out-of-fashion in recent years, to the point where even storied politicians like Collin Peterson & Mary Landrieu had their coalitions blown asunder.  If there were actually 44% of the electorate that were gettable in each election, we'd see FAR more turnover in Congress, and far less states that we'd consider to be "red" or "blue" (the map would be a sea of purple).  The reality is that these Independent voters might not like either party, but they consistently vote for the two-party system, and overwhelmingly favor one of those two in most elections.  There are a variety of reasons for this, including some that seem rational (people don't want to "throw their vote away") and some that are far more cringeworthy (simply people who want the cache of being an "independent" rather than admitting they are actually a Democrat or Republican), but if you've voted for one party in the last 3-4 major federal elections, I hate to break it to you...you're not an Independent.

This begs the question of what No Labels is doing.  They are certainly not an organic reaction to the lack of a third party.  They are run by two former politicians (Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Sen. Joe Lieberman) and have associations to Mark Penn (his wife Nancy Jacobson is the organization's chief executive), the former Clinton aide who has spent much of the past six years being a Trump surrogate, even offering him advice headed into the former president's 2020 reelection campaign.  Given that Hogan has said he would support Trump in 2024 if he was the Republican nominee, one has to wonder if this is all just a front for the GOP to split the Democratic base's vote (it should be noted that Joe Lieberman did endorse Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, so there is some credence to this being, at least surface-level, bipartisan, though Lieberman did not endorse President Obama in either of his presidential campaigns).  Donald Trump won in 2016 but lost in 2020 in part because Joe Biden did a better job of keeping third party numbers down than Hillary Clinton did...this could be a move to try and duplicate that to get Trump a second term in 2024.

What it's not doing is being serious.  For starters, "moderation" or "independence" is not an ideology-it's just a concept.  While there have been third party movements (for good or bad) who had a consistent ideology like the Libertarians, the Dixiecrats, or the Reform Party, No Labels is mostly platitudes, and there's a reason for that.  A lot of major issues of the day are largely Yes/No questions-think things like abortion, gun control, trans rights, immigration, & climate change, where you have to pick a side of the debate and there's not a lot of middle ground voters want to stand within.  The second the No Labels nominee starts to take a stand on those issues, suddenly they're pissing off a lot of people who might consider voting independent, but not one who supports abortion rights or won't aggressively go after climate change.  One of the primary reasons that the national binary works is because people generally align with Democrats or Republicans collectively on most issues-there's not enough room for a third party candidacy to stake a third political ground.

I will close that the biggest thing that I can tell No Labels isn't serious about is because it's focusing on running for president rather than running for all levels, or focusing on ballot initiatives, specifically around Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV).  RCV is the single-biggest motivator to moderate politics-it allows for people like Lisa Murkowski (R) & Mary Peltola, or Susan Collins (R) & Jared Golden (D) to win on the same ballot, because you can vote for third parties without impunity, as you have to get a majority to win.  The only way that third parties could ultimately be successful is if you get RCV in as many places as possible, and we're seeing that more-and-more (Minnesota looks like it could get it next).  When a third party candidacy starts to work only in RCV states or focuses clearly on RCV, take it seriously, as that's a party that's willing to do the legwork.  But from my vantage point, No Labels appears to be a con job, and not a convincing one.