According to multiple reports, the centrist No Labels Party is attempting to gain access to ballots across Tennessee for the upcoming 2024 election cycle.
Veteran political operator Ryan Clancy is the chief strategist of the group, and it boasts support from high-profile figures like former Republican Governor of Maryland Larry Hogan, former Democrat Governor of North Carolina Pat McCrory, and former Democrat Senator Joe Liebermann of Connecticut.
Founded in 2010, the party, which describes itself as “radically centrist,” is working on a “Unity Ticket” for the 2024 election cycle.
“No Labels is working to ensure Americans have the choice to vote for a presidential ticket that features strong, effective, and honest leaders who will commit to working closely with both parties to find commonsense solutions to America’s biggest problems,” according to No Labels’ website.
The group says it is in the process of nominating a candidate for president but that it will only do so “under the proper environmental conditions, which must be met for us to proceed.”
No Labels does not say what those conditions are but assures that it will “measure these conditions rigorously, through regular polling and research.”
What it will not do, according to its CEO Nancy Jacobson, is run a presidential candidate if that candidate would help former President Donald Trump win a second term.
Earlier this week, the party gained ballot access in Mississippi.
Its most ardent critics are liberals.
“Third Way, a Democratic-aligned nonprofit group, charged No Labels on Tuesday with orchestrating a ‘radical new plan’ to block President Joe Biden from getting a majority in the Electoral College,” according to an article published in The New Republic. “The plan consists of running a well-funded third-party candidate in key states, then sending the election to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where former President Donald Trump would be virtually certain to win.”
Achieving ballot status in Tennessee is no small feat.
According to the Tennessee Secretary of State, to become a recognized party, No Labels must file a petition signed by registered voters totaling two and a half percent of the total number of voters who voted in the last gubernatorial election.
“Because Tennessee had a total of 1,739,882 votes cast for governor in 2022, at least 43,497 registered voters of the State of Tennessee must sign the petition to form a statewide recognized minor party. (43,497 is 2.5 percent of 1,739,882, which was the total number of votes cast for governor in November of 2022.),” the Secretary of State says. “Statewide recognition allows the recognized minor political party to have candidates for any federal, state or county office on the ballot which is not required to be non-partisan.”
The Tennessee Star reached out to No Labels to see if it had plans for candidates to run for any federal, state, or local offices in Tennessee, but did not hear back.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on X / Twitter.
Photo “Voting Stickers” by GPA Photo Archive. CC BY-NC 2.0.
