A third party got on the ballot in Arizona for 2024. Could they change the outcome of the election?
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A third party preparing to run a centrist candidate for president next year has made it onto the ballot in Arizona.
The group No Labels met Arizona’s minimum signature requirement to be recognized for federal, statewide and legislative races in 2024, the state’s Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said last week.
“As Secretary of State, I am committed to supporting county election officials to ensure that they are prepared for this new addition to the state’s list of parties and any other changes to the 2024 ballot,” Fontes said in a statement.
No Labels has also met requirements for ballot access in Colorado and Oregon and has plans to expand to other states to field a candidate if Democrats and Republicans nominate “extreme” candidates next year.
“We’re well on our way to establishing a ballot line in all 50 states that would allow independent and bipartisan policy solutions and candidates if necessary to engage in the 2024’s general election if the two parties nominate unpopular extreme candidates,” No Labels co-chair Benjamin F. Chavis wrote in an editorial.
Although early in the campaign cycle, polls suggest 2024 could be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, but voters aren’t enthused. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found 58% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents want someone other than Biden as their nominee, and 49% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said the same thing about Trump.
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Chavis, a civil rights leader and Democrat, said No Labels was “not looking to ‘spoil’ an election.” But that’s what the center-left think tank Third Way said their efforts could do.
In a memo first reported by Politico, Third Way wrote that a No Labels Party candidate would help elect former President Donald Trump or a Trump-like Republican nominee. Third Way pointed to AP Votecast data that found 2016 third-party voters favored President Joe Biden in the 2020 election, as did voters who don’t like either major party, suggesting Democrats would be disadvantaged in a three-way race.
“No Labels is arguing this is a unique historical moment that gives their ‘unity ticket’ a real shot at winning the White House,” the group wrote in its memo. “But that is an illusion. The data and historical evidence are clear: no third-party candidate would come close to winning.”
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No Labels could potentially find success in Arizona, where the electorate is split roughly into thirds between voters registered as Democrats, Republicans and other. The closely divided electorate could also play out in the state’s U.S. Senate race next year. Should Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., seek reelection, the state would face a rare competitive three-way race that could split Democrats. Guy Cecil, the outgoing chair of the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA, told CBS News he believes Democrats will ultimately side with their party’s likely nominee, Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.
No Labels was founded in 2011 as a nonpartisan group, and two years later it announced the Problem Solvers caucus, a bipartisan group of 24 members of Congress. No Labels is co-chaired by Chavis alongside former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who said this month he won’t run for president, and former Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman, who left the party to become an independent.
Former co-chairs include former Republican presidential candidate and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V.
