President Joe Biden said Arizona’s newest political party, No Labels, will help his eventual Republican opponent in the 2024 presidential election during a Sunday interview with ProPublica.
Biden said No Labels will harm his electoral prospects during an interview with reporter John Harwood, asserting its organizer Joe Lieberman is making a “mistake” by abandoning the Democratic Party for a third party effort.
“He has a democratic right to do it, there’s no reason not to do it,” Biden said of Lieberman. Though Biden did not name former President Donald Trump during his answer, he insisted Lieberman’s work with No Labels is “going to help the other guy” and Lieberman “knows” it.
Biden added, “that’s a political decision he’s making, that I obviously think is a mistake, but he has a right to do that.”
No candidate has declared a presidential bid for No Labels’ nomination, however, the party has repeatedly said it intends to use its ballot access in battleground states like Arizona to serve as a launching pad for a moderate presidential candidate who offers a meaningful alternative to the Republican and Democratic nominees. Both Lieberman and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) have been floated as possible presidential candidates for the party.
No Labels’ presence on the ballot has been of particular interest in Arizona, where the party has amassed more than 15,000 registered voters, primarily in Maricopa County and Pima County, since being recognized by the state earlier this year. The party’s membership in Arizona now also exceeds the number of recorded votes in Biden’s electoral victory over Trump in 2020; Biden received just 11,000 more votes than Trump in the state.
Biden is not the only Democrat to express concerns about No Labels. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said he was “concerned” about the group in July, when he said the group’s “dark money” funding from “a few rich people” should be made public for Arizona voters.
Additionally, the Arizona Democratic Party (AZDP) filed a lawsuit and an official complaint with Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) to have the party stricken from the 2024 ballot. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed, and Fontes has yet to weigh in on the complaint about No Labels’ lack of financial disclosures.
However, Fontes did recently refuse to allow No Labels to prohibit candidates from filing to run for seats it did not intend to contest. The party previously insisted it did not intend to run a slate of state candidates, and only sought to offer its presidential nomination to a viable third party candidate.
Democracy Alliance, the nation’s most influential liberal donor group, has also reportedly pursued an agreement with progressive advocacy group MoveOn and center-left group Third Way, aimed at undermining No Labels.
No Labels is reportedly planning to spend more than $70 million during the 2024 election, which the Associated Press notes is more than any third-party presidential bid since Ross Perot’s Reform Party campaign in 1992.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Georgia Star News and a reporter for the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
