Bipartisan Group Pushes For Third-Party Candidate Amid Possible Biden-Trump 'Rematch From Hell'

A bipartisan non-profit is pushing for a third-party candidate who can give Americans a "choice" if the 2024 election sets up a Biden-Trump rematch that some experts have said would not be the best scenario.

"The end game here is not running an independent ticket. The end game is making sure that Americans have the choice of strong, effective and honest leaders that they actually feel good about voting and that they think are going to govern with common sense," said Ryan Clancy, chief strategist of centrist bipartisan non-profit No Labels, USA Today reported Sunday.

Clancy said the group will only push for a third-party candidate if voters continue to express dissatisfaction with Democratic and GOP nominees.

"The center needs a voice in this country," said Nancy Jacobson, No Labels' chief executive officer.

Matt Bennett, the founder of the think tank Third Way, told USA Today that a third-party candidate can't win the 2024 presidency and could instead increase Trump's chances of getting re-elected.

On concerns of whether an independent ticket being pursued by No Labels would serve as a spoiler for former President Donald Trump, the group clarified that it would pull out its third-party candidate if it feels the candidate becomes a driver for putting Trump back into the White House.

So far, No Labels has secured a spot for the following ballots: Oregon, Arizona, Colorado and Alaska and has a funding of $70 million from undisclosed donors. However, the group has yet to settle on an independent candidate.

News of No Labels' efforts came as questions remain about whether Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., would consider entering the 2024 presidential race on an independent ticket.

"There's a movement going on that people want, to bring the extremes back to the sensible and reasonable, responsible middle," Manchin, a moderate Democrat, told CNN in an April interview.

Manchin also previously said that he would make a decision in his political plans for 2024 "a little bit" before his filing date of in mid-January 2024.

Questions emerged about a potential Manchin 2024 run via a third-party ticket after he supposedly sounded like a presidential candidate during an early April interview on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"When you're asking me what I'm going to do and what my political ambitions would be, it's to make the country work together and be a United States and not be the divided states," he said in the interview. "I'm going to do whatever we can to have a voice in the middle," he added.

Third-party candidates don't do well historically, wrote Emmy-awarded journalist Bernard Goldberg in a recent op-ed for The Hill. However, Goldberg said it wasn't impossible for a third-party runner to emerge, considering how independents now outnumber members of the two rival parties.

A Harvard-Harris poll in March also found that 53% of American voters would consider voting for a moderate independent candidate over both Trump and President Joe Biden.

While Goldberg suggested that a third-party candidate like Manchin or anyone else wasn't very likely, "frisky" voters may have a different direction besides Biden and Trump as they avoid a rematch of the 2020 race.

The efforts of No Labels to hopefully bring out a third-party candidate came as former Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, slammed a Biden-Trump scenario in 2024.

"The reality is two-thirds of Americans want somebody other than Donald Trump and Joe Biden. That's like the rematch from hell," he told NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

A late April poll by NBC News also found that 70% of respondents don't want Biden to run again, and 60% don't want a Trump re-run either.

Both Trump and Biden have issues of their own ahead of the 2024 election.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that the majority of Americans want Trump to be held accountable for the events that led to the Capitol riot in early 2021. The poll also found that 68% of Americans are concerned Biden was too told for another term.

Meanwhile, some Democratic supporters are still concerned that a third-party candidate will ruin a Democrat presidential candidate's 2024 bid.

"A third party would probably take more votes from Biden than Trump," William A. Galston, a former Clinton aide, told the Los Angeles Times.

Third Way has also argued that a third-party runner would "hurt incumbents" and pull support from a Democratic candidate while "boosting" the Republican's pacemaker.