The coalition opposing the No Labels effort – which already includes Third Way, the progressive group MoveOn.org, the Democratic opposition research firm American Bridge and the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, made up of Republican advisers – will be joined by the next week by a bipartisan coalition led by Richard A. Gephardt, a former Democratic House leader.
To No Labels’ most ardent opponents, the group’s lofty rhetoric and calls for centrism mask a secret agenda to bring Republicans back to the White House. They point to a number of No Labels donors, such as Woody Hunt, senior president of Hunt Companies, John Catsimatidis, head of Gristedes Foods, and Ted Kellner, a Milwaukee businessman, who have generously donated to Republicans, including Trump, suggesting such donors know full well that No Labels’ primary role now is to harm Democrats.
Polls conducted by an outside firm for Mr. Gephardt seemed to indicate that a candidate deemed moderate, independent and bipartisan might not win the presidency, but would do serious damage to Mr. Biden’s re-election effort. In a national poll by Prime Group, a Democratic-leaning public opinion research and messaging company, Mr. Biden would beat Mr. Trump by roughly the same popular vote margin he won in 2020. But if a centrist candidate third party enters the race, that candidate could take a much larger share of voters from Mr. Biden than from Mr. Trump.
The same group looked at seven swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and found that Trump would win three of those states in a head-to-head match with Biden, Mr. Biden two. In two of the states, according to the poll, Biden and Trump are essentially tied.
Nancy Jacobson, founder of No Labels, said — as she has before — that the effort should be seen as an « insurance policy » for an American electorate unhappy with a potential repeat of the 2020 Biden-Trump election. The « common sense » document it’s a catalyst for tempering that dissatisfaction or channeling it into a real political movement.
