A Democrat strategist has admitted that a candidate from the bipartisan centrist political group No Labels posed a “very real threat” to President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.
On Thursday, No Labels announced it would decline to field a presidential candidate in the 2024 election.
The group said it had failed to find a “hero” candidate who could take on both President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump in November.
On CNN Friday morning, Republican and Democrat strategists celebrated the group’s failure to secure an acceptable challenger.
“It was silly from the beginning,” Republican strategist Sarah Longwell remarked.
“It was poorly run, poorly executed”
However, Democrat strategist Karen Finney argued No Labels had presented a “dangerous” threat to Biden’s re-election chances.
Finney also revealed that Democrats, including herself, actively worked to undermine the effort to protect Biden from the “very real threat.”
“They were very dangerous because they had over $70 million to get on the ballot,” Finney recalled.
“And what they were promising,” she added.
“They were promising that they could win states like Texas.”
“And again, it was totally illogical, but it was a very real threat that myself and others worked very hard to not just undermine, but to make sure that the people they were talking to understood, that their rhetoric just did not work, and their math did not work.”
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No Labels National Political Director Joe Cunningham said Thursday that the decision to abandon their efforts to find a third-party candidate for the presidential race was not made lightly.
“Let me say, it’s not for lack of trying,” Cunningham said on Fox News’s “Your World.”
“The short answer is that to field this ticket, No Labels was looking for a hero, and a hero never emerged.”
Democrat strategists and Biden allies have warned about a third-party candidate threat with increasing panic as the November election draws near.
On MSNBC last month, the network’s host and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki called third-party presidential candidates like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. the “biggest challenge” to Biden’s re-election chances.
Psaki noted that the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) were focusing their efforts on tackling this threat.
“There is an aggressive effort that the campaign has been working with the Democratic National Committee on to run on this,” Psaki said.
“But it needs to be broad.
“People need to be shouting it from the rooftops because this is one of the biggest threats to Joe Biden being re-elected — is these third-party candidates.”
Several Democrat strategists recently sounded the alarm to NBC News about the threat a third-party candidate poses.
One senior Democrat reportedly told the outlet they were “freaked out” about how close the race could be.
