America might be tired of both of Trump and Biden. Is a Third-Party the answer? Rumors that West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin could throw his hat in the ring suggest dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Last month, a CNN poll showed that 75% of Democrats are dissatisfied with Joe Biden as their party’s standard bearer and wanted someone else.
Manchin spoke at a conference sponsored by No Labels, a Centrist organization with roots in Bill Clinton’s 1992 Center Left presidential campaign, at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire.
No Labels’ co-chairmen include former Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and former Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman. The group is a 501(c)4 that does not have to disclose its donors. However, it is widely believed to have significant funding from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Loew’s Corporation co-chairman Andrew Tisch.
No Labels proposed running a third party campaign with a Republican and a Democrat on the ticket earlier this year.
The senator denied having presidential ambitions during an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
“I’ve never been in any race I’ve ever spoiled. I’ve been in races to win,” Manchin said Monday. “And if I get in a race, I’m going to win.”
Manchin continued: “I haven’t made any decision, nor will I make a decision until the end of the year.”
No Labels Hopes to Sponsor Third Party Candidate
North Carolina’s former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, an No Labels co-chairman, noted that No Labels hopes to offer voters who are dissatisfied with their choices with a third option. Fifty-five percent of self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaning voters expressed dissatisfaction with Donald Trump as their candidate in the CNN poll.
“We will present a president and vice president candidate on a No Labels ticket if Biden and Trump are on track to win their parties’ nominations,” McCrory said. “We plan to do that. But only if we see we have an opportunity to win.”
McCrory stated that the group would make a decision on running a candidate after Super Tuesday next March, once the Republican and Democratic nominees will be set.
“Third party candidates don’t win presidential elections but they can lose them in a tight contest—look at the impact of Ralph Nader on Al Gore in 2000,” Mark Shanahan, an associate professor in politics at the University of Surrey in the U.K. and co-editor of The Trump Presidency: From Campaign Trail to World Stage, told Newsweek. “They can also change the course of campaigning. Remember the impact Ross Perot’s populism had on both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton‘s campaigns in 1992, and indeed on Clinton’s subsequent first term policy making.”
Warning Signs for Biden
Manchin’s potential run is a warning for Joe Biden.
The relative success of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s insurgent campaign and his ability to gain double-digit support against the incumbent also is a warning sign for Biden.
No incumbent president who faced an insurgent challenger has won re-election since 1952. Harry Truman was forced to decline to seek a third term after losing the New Hampshire primary to Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver in 1952. Lyndon Johnson declined to seek a second term after he nearly lost to Sen. Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary in 1968. And Kennedy’s uncle, Sen. Edward Kennedy, ran a spirited campaign against President Jimmy Carter in 1980. A decade later George H.W. Bush faced a strong challenge from commentator Pat Buchanan. Both Carter and Bush won their respective nominations but lost re-election due to partisan divisions in their respective parties.
Reagan won in 1980 in part due to the “Reagan Democrat” vote, and Clinton was able to capitalize on low Republican enthusiasm for Bush.
Biden faces a similar trend. This historical trend, combined with the potential that Manchin could run a third-party campaign against Biden and Trump, is a clear sign that Biden could lose in 2024.
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
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