Bipartisan group rolls out new bid to kill off third-party effort ahead of 2024

A bipartisan group has targeted third-party presidential contenders, including the third-party group No Labels, in an ad released Monday, claiming third-party candidates would result in a second term for former President Donald Trump.

The bipartisan group “Citizens to Save Our Republic,” will run the $100,000 ad buy in the Washington, D.C., area, with plans to run the two ads in swing states next year if necessary. The group is led by former House minority leader Richard A. Gephardt, a Missouri Democrat.

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“We are worried about any third party,” Gephardt told reporters on Monday. “We realize it is a free country. Anybody can run for president who wants to run for president. But we have a right to tell citizens the danger they will face if they vote for any of these third-party candidates.”

The ads attack attorney and Kennedy clan member Robert F. Kennedy Jr., scholar Cornel West, and Green Party leader Jill Stein, along with No Labels, a nonprofit organization that advocates bipartisanship in the government, including a bipartisan presidential ticket. One ad claims Trump is the “anti-democracy candidate” and argues that Kennedy, Stein, West, and No Labels will help Trump by pulling votes from President Joe Biden.

The other ad specifically targets No Labels, describing the group as a “dark money” effort because it does not disclose its donors. No Labels has not declared any presidential candidates so far, but Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), and former Maryland governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, are reportedly considering seeking No Labels’ bipartisan ticket. The party has launched a nationwide effort to get ballot access in all 50 states by next fall.

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“They are welcome to waste six figures running ads in Washington talking to other party insiders,” No Labels senior adviser Ryan Clancy told the Washington Post. “We’ll stay focused on the two-thirds of Americans who live everywhere else and want another choice in 2024.”

No Labels’s founding chairman, former Sen. Joe Lieberman, recently told Fox News that there would be a great deal of enthusiasm among the group if former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s Republican bid did not work out and she opted to run on their ticket. However, Haley has signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee for president.