Obama campaign manager blasts No Labels for pushing ‘dangerous lie’ that will send Trump back to DC

Former President Barack Obama‘s 2012 campaign manager is warning that centrist group No Labels is pushing a “dangerous lie” that a third-party candidate could win the 2024 election.

Jim Messina said the “farce” that someone other than a major-party candidate could win would “simply serve to put Trump back in the White House” in an op-ed on Monday.

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“The idea that a ‘unity ticket’ featuring a Republican and a Democrat could somehow produce a nominee with ‘a clear path to victory’ is worse than a political fiction,” Messina wrote. “The group behind it, No Labels, is pushing a dangerous lie that would simply serve to put Trump back in the White House.”

Messina pointed to various unsuccessful third-party candidates, including George Wallace in 1968, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein in 2016, Ralph Nader in 2000, and Ross Perot in 1992, as examples of why even a high-profile alternative candidacy can fail. He also argued that the Electoral College is not “designed to support third parties” and that it leads to two predictable outcomes for voters.

“This leads to two practical effects: First, parties are incentivized to form the largest coalitions possible, which naturally leads to a two-party system,” he wrote. “Second, many voters don’t want to ‘waste’ their vote on a candidate with no chance of winning, so they default to the major parties. Both effects make it harder for third parties to compete.”

Trump’s small margins of victory in 2016 and defeat in 2020 in key swing states means every Democratic vote counts, Messina said, and a third-party candidate getting votes could hurt President Joe Biden’s reelection chances.

“This alone should give any responsible person pause,” he wrote. “A No Labels candidate in these states could easily hand the election to Trump.”

Following an interview Trump gave earlier this month in which he suggested he is open to operating as a “Day One” dictator, Messina warned groups such as No Labels need to “cut the crap” as their involvement in the race appears set to hurt Biden’s voter share more than put any alternative candidate besides Trump on a path to victory.

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“The prospect of Trump being president again should be repellent to any decent person who believes in freedom and building a more perfect union,” he wrote. “The people at No Labels know better than this. It’s time to cut the crap, believe the data and be honest with the American people. Any well-funded third-party candidate would be a disaster for our republic — and risks putting us on a direct path to a dictatorship.”

No Labels has not given a firm date for when it would decide whether to run a third-party candidate, but national Co-Chairman Larry Hogan has said the group would likely have an idea around Super Tuesday in March.