Morning Wire - Will a Third Party Candidate Spoil the Presidential Election | Sunday Extra

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

The No Labels campaign has announced that they may run a third party candidate for president if Joe Biden and Donald Trump win their respective primaries. We speak to Joe Cunningham, the national director of No Labels about getting a candidate on the ballot in all fifty states and who that candidate might be. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Historically, third parties in the U.S. do not perform well in presidential elections, but the No Labels campaign, which describes itself as a nonpartisan voice for the common sense majority, has announced that they may add a name to the ballot in 2024 in the event of a Donald Trump Joe Biden rematch. In this episode, we talked to the national director of No Labels about why they think 2024 might be primed for a third party president. I'm Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Vickley with Georgia Hal. It's Sunday, July 30th, and this is an extra edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now is Joe Cunningham, the national director of No Labels, who is a former Democratic Congressman for South Carolina.

Joe, thanks for coming on. First, can you give us a brief explainer of the mission behind No Labels and how it came to be? Yeah, of course. So No Labels is nonprofit. It's been around for over 12 years now, and it was established to basically give the common sense majority a voice in a place that. stand. I came about with my introduction to no labels back after I was elected to Congress in 2018. I ran Congress here in Charleston, South Carolina on platform of bipartisanship, bringing

people together. As a Democrat, I had Republican mayors endorsing my campaign. And so I got to Congress, the Problem Solvers Caucus, which is a group of half Democrats, half Republicans, and started by no labels, seemed like a natural home to me. And so, So I began working with no labels through them back in early 2019 and stayed involved because I felt like in my time in Congress, what I saw was that there's only a couple of places where Democrats and Republicans actually come together. One is the House gym, you know, but there's nothing, there's no substantive policy debates down there. Another one was the Problem Solvers Caucus and they'd been able to accomplish a lot of victories, the bipartisan victories that have occurred in recent years, would be this infrastructure deal, whether it be avoiding the debt ceiling fiasco,

or during my time, it was COVID-relieved, the CARES Act, all that stuff, the problem solvers caucus had their handprints on it. And last December, they expanded their vision further by just looking towards 2024 and asking the question, okay, if it's Trump versus Biden, would Americans want another choice? And would they have an appetite for a unity ticket?

which is a Democrat Republican or Republican Democrat as another option, another and better option for Americans to choose from. And what they found was during that polling, you know, and people kind of thought no label was crazy, assuming it'd be a Trump Biden rematch. But lo and behold, here we are. What we found through polling was that a good portion of Americans are open to this idea. And majority of Americans do not want to see rematch between Trump and Biden. And those polls have been corroborated here recently. And so what we've been doing, no labels, is securing ballot access across the country.

We're attempting to get on the ballot in all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C. is an insurance policy to provide another and better option for Americans who don't want to see this rematch. And we're only going to be doing it if, A, most Americans are dissatisfied with the choices they're presented, from the two major parties. And then B, if our polling shows that we have an outright pathway to victory,

because we're not going to engage to barely dent the scoreboard, we'd be getting in it to win it. Right, and that leads to my next question, which is that most people say voting for a third party candidate is just throwing away a vote. But you're suggesting there might be a unique opportunity here in 2024 for the success of a third party candidate. Do you think the polling is supporting that so far? what we've seen so far it suggests that yes you know i always kind of fall back on paraphrasing

victor hugo so there's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come and i recognize a knowledge of skepticism may exist towards third parties based upon history however i feel like we're at time right now where these two presumptive nominees are viewed so unfavorably by the majority of Americans. And you have a gallop poll came out with the numbers that show we have the record high number of people identifying as independence, almost 50%. So about as many as Democrats and Republicans combined. And if there's a pathway of victory, and if this is what America wants, then this is what we brought on with. Now, it's one thing to talk about hypothetically a third-party candidate in quite another to actually find that candidate. Often that person is going to come from one of the

two sides, Republican or Democrat, which would pre-biased the support. How do you find the right person in this really polarized political moment that can appeal to both sides? Is that even possible? Well, I think most Americans just want government to work, and they want to tone down the device of rhetoric. So I think, you know, finding those leaders who have achieved some success in both of those realms, providing results and bridging the partisan divide, there's a lot of leaders out there. And oftentimes what I found in Congress was they don't oftentimes get the spotlight. You know, you have your show horses and you have your workhorse. And those members inside the problem solvers caucus, they may not be the ones who oftentimes go viral. However, I was proud

to serve on that caucus and proud of those members that are there because they do do the hard work. Same can be said with leaders across the country, whether they're mayors or governors or senators or members of Congress. You know, there's a lot of people that I've, feel like can still reach majority. I mean, look, the majority of Americans are somewhere near the middle. Some are a little bit to the left, some are a little bit to the right, but the majority of us are somewhere around the middle. But the conversation and the dialogue is oftentimes dominated by extremes on both sides. So we're just trying to make the base the country, I guess, look more like how majority of Americans are ideologically.

One of the names that has been bandied about a good bit already is Senator Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, and he's recently spoken at one of your events, correct? Yeah, so that happened in New Hampshire. We launched the book Common Sense, and we're thrilled to have Senator Mansion there, as well as Governor Huntsman. And those two people were original co-chairs for no labels. And so they had a long history with the entity and organization. And, of course, Senator Mansion over in the U.S. Senate has been working with problem solvers caucus for a good while now. He's just been in this realm. So we're, you know, we're proud to have him there to launch common sense. I can tell you, we'll be having more town

halls like that with other leaders. And so we haven't began to hone in on any potential names or candidates yet. So anytime somebody brings somebody up, it's mere speculation. I think Senator Manchin's name gets brought up because he does do a lot of work in that same space that no labels and the problem Solvers Caucus Occupy. You mentioned trying to get on the ballot in all 50 states. How hard is that actually to do? It's an arduous task. I mean, it's not impossible, and we've got a great team of people.

However, I'm an attorney about trade, and so you're looking at the laws in 50 different jurisdictions, and you have to have a good handle on those. And then, unfortunately, there are entities that they're looking to push back against this effort. And what this is about when you take a step back, and look at what we're trying to do by secure and ballot access. This is about giving Americans options. This is about our constitutional right to assemble and to a secure ballot access.

And that's all we're trying to do is secure that ballot to potentially give Americans another option should they want that. And I don't understand why that should be controversial. Final question. When is your deadline to make a decision? When do you think you need to have decided based on the polling that there really is a chance for a third party candidate? So Super Tuesday in March of 2024 is usually historically the time which we have a good idea as to who the two major nominees are. We have our convention in Texas in mid-April. So we'll have the time period by mid-March, Super Tuesday, we'll know who the major nominees are.

And if they are so unfavorable by Americans and if there's a pathway, we'll be doing polling into this year up until next year. and so we'll make that decision between March and April as to whether or not those two metrics that we discussed earlier or met. Having said that, we retain access to the ballot, and if this is launched, if America doesn't gravitate towards it, or if it's determined that that pathway to victory closes down, we'll have the ability to take down the ballot up through probably the summer or early fall. So we do have on-ramps and we also have off-rams as well. There are no cowboys here. We're not looking to torpedo or spoil any election. And again, would only be engaged in this and enter into this if we see a pathway to victory.

And again, that's if it's Trump versus Biden. If there's another candidate in the mix, you may not pull the trigger. Our metric is just whether or not the two candidates are so unfavorable. And whether or not any other two individuals, that scenario would have to welcome a third and better option. And I just don't know if that exists. with other candidates besides the Trump-Biden rematch. Well, we're facing an unprecedented election already on multiple fronts. We'll see what comes next.

Joe, thank you for coming on. That was No Labels National Director, Joe Cunningham, and this has been an extra edition of Morning Wire.