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The chief strategist for a third party called No Labels, Ryan Clancy, discussed with Fox News Digital “American voters’ openness to an independent alternative” in the 2024 presidential election. He called the movement “unprecedented.”
“With one-in-four voters opting for an unnamed candidate, voters are disrupting the calculus that they will automatically vote for one of the two major party choices,” David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said this week.
The Suffolk University poll also showed that approximately one-third of the voters from both the Republican and Democrat parties would prefer a different candidate at the top of the ticket.
Clancy speculates that the poll “understates” the magnitude of the situation. He believes that if there is this much support for a yet-to-be-named candidate, a “moderate candidate” could win over support from a much larger faction.
The co-founder of Third Way, a group of Democrat strategists and Never-Trumpers, Matt Bennet said that when voters are polled about a third-party candidate, they imagine whomever they would love to see as the next president.
“The overwhelming likelihood, therefore, is that the Suffolk numbers are a high water-mark for the third party because the minute a candidate is named, large segments of those respondents will opt out,” Bennett told Fox News.
“The notion that No Labels can win ANYWHERE, much less in the 25 states they claim they can carry, is the purest fantasy,” Bennett continued.
Some third-party candidates poll well early on, but “voters understand that they’d be throwing away their vote, so by the time Election Day arrives, they move to one of the major parties,” Bennett said.
“It’s unclear at this stage who No Labels might put up as a third-party challenge in 2024 — if the group fields any candidate,” according to Fox News.
“No Labels has referred to President Trump as an ‘unacceptable’ candidate,” but the group has not pledged to put up a candidate if Trump does not get the GOP nomination.
Regarding the presumed Democrat nominee, Joe Biden, No Labels is going against the assertion that a third-party candidate would help Trump win the 2024 presidential election.
Fox News reports:
Numerous Democratic operatives and surrogates have cautioned that an independent moderate would take away support from Biden. But No Labels insists its “unity ticket” would draw support “equally” from Republican and Democrat-leaning voters. The ambitious proposed path to victory would secure electoral votes from purple and swing states across the country.
“It still hasn’t registered with much of the political class in Washington just how dissatisfied the public is with their choices and just how much they desire something better,” said Clancy.
“The opening is much bigger than in 1992, when Perot ran, or at any time in living memory,” Clancy said. “There are so many polls showing two-thirds or more of Americans don’t want a rematch of the 2020 election. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that many Americans are open to voting for another choice if it’s available in 2024.”
It is a sad commentary on where the country is right now.
