It's promised, No Labels will reveal the name of its champion for the American presidential election after Super Tuesday, Tuesday March 5.
But the collective working for a “bipartisan” candidacy remains much more vague on a specific date, underlines in a March 4 article the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung which spoke with Fred Upton, a Republican and spokesperson for No Labels.
Members of this group are due to meet on March 8 to assess their chance of finding an alternative to Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Just a few weeks ago, No Labels claimed to be able to present its candidate in mid-March.
From now on, the collective declares “to have time”, indicates the American channel CNN.
Serial refusal
According to No Labels, it is a matter of ensuring that they find the right “ticket” - their ambition being to present a candidate from one political side and a vice-president from the other camp -, while several media believe that this caution is the sign of a predicted failure.
Several candidates capable of embodying a third way in the eyes of No Labels have in fact publicly announced that they are not interested.
This is the case of the very conservative Democrat Joe Manchin, like the former Republican governor of Maryland and fervent anti-Trumpist Larry Hogan.
Chris Christie, the only former candidate for the Republican Party nomination in 2024 to openly criticize Donald Trump, also distanced himself from No Labels.
Finally, Nikki Haley, the last Republican to stand up to Donald Trump during the right-wing primaries, affirmed that she preferred to act from within the party rather than becoming the champion of a hypothetical centrist cause.
These serial refusals are symptomatic of the difficulty in breaking away from the bipartisan logic of the American political system, even though the stars seem well aligned for the No Labels collective.
Founded in 2010 with the ambition of becoming a sort of “third way”, this collective has never been as talked about as since the start of the campaign for the 2024 presidential election.
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Indeed, 64% of Americans do not want a new face-to-face between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll published at the end of January 2024. However, neither the Democratic Party nor the Republicans were unable to offer an alternative.
“We are in a context of deep dissatisfaction among the electorate towards the candidates presented by the traditional parties,” assures Mark McLay, specialist in American politics at the University of Lancaster, in the United Kingdom.
Fear among pro-Biden people
Those responsible for No Labels believe they have a golden opportunity here.
“In 1992, multi-billionaire Ross Perot managed to obtain 19% of the vote in a context of strong disillusionment among the population with regard to the two major parties,” underlines Iwan Morgan, specialist in contemporary political history of the United States. at University College London.
In 1968, during the only election in which an independent won a state, George Wallace - a racist populist - took advantage of the absence of a charismatic candidate within the Democratic Party which he had just left.
At the end of 2023, Democrats and Republicans were also worried about the risk of seeing No Labels this time find their providential candidate, each party accusing this centrist collective of playing into the hands of the other camp.
But it was mainly the Democratic Party that complained, going so far as to accuse No Labels of being secretly financed by generous conservative donors.
For Iwan Morgan, the Biden camp indeed has more reason to fear a No Labels candidate.
“Protest voting generally benefits the Democratic Party.
But some of these votes could go to a possible independent candidate, to the detriment of Joe Biden,” believes this expert.
This is all the more true as the profile of the perfect representative of the 3rd way resembles a young Joe Biden.
“Such a candidate must have been in politics for some time, be able to compromise with both parties and have moderate positions,” summarizes Thomas Gift, director of the Center for Research on North American Politics at University College from London.
Who wants to be a “martyr of the cause”?
The difficulties of the No Labels collective in finding a herald do not surprise the experts interviewed by France 24. Indeed, if the electoral period may seem ideal for an independent candidate, “the fact remains that he would have no real chance of winning.
Which means that we need to find someone ready to play the role of martyr for the cause,” notes Thomas Gift.
According to this specialist, there are few politicians, especially national ones, who would be ready to sacrifice themselves for the sole purpose of planting the small seed that could one day transform into the beautiful flower of the “third way”.
Especially since “in the context of extreme polarization of American politics, there are fewer and fewer politicians at the center of the political spectrum”, underlines Mark McLary.
The new political stars are very left-wing, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or are emulators of Donald Trump, like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The few politicians likely to please the collective also know that the gap between the two camps has widened so much “that voters will not take the risk of voting for an independent candidate”, notes Mark McLary, for fear of “winning voice” to their opponent.
In other words, even if an overwhelming majority of Americans do not want a new Biden vs. Trump match, the useful vote risks playing out.
Which does not mean that the No Labels collective has no chance of finding a candidate.
But the tribulations to eventually achieve this, while a majority of Americans dream of change, do not bode well for the good health of their political system.
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