The national director for No Labels, the group that attempted to field a third-party “unity ticket” for the 2024 election, said he will vote for President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump in November.
Joe Cunningham, a former Democratic congressman from South Carolina, told Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Thursday that Biden will get his vote after No Labels announced earlier in the day that it was ditching its effort to get a third-party candidate on the ballot to challenge both Biden and Trump.
“You have two prominent [candidates], and, maybe, Robert F. Kennedy. A choice among them, for you, as a person, what would you do?” Cavuto asked.
“Me, as a person? I would vote for Biden over Trump,” Cunningham responded.
The No Labels director told Cavuto that his group’s biggest issue in fielding a challenger to the two political parties was finding “a hero,” which he said “never emerged.”
“We’ve been very straightforward and upfront and honest with the American public that we were gonna field this ticket if two conditions were met. Number 1, if Americans wanted another option, which is definitely, box is checked,” Cunningham said. “And number 2, if we’re able to find candidates that we believe have a pathway to victory. And that’s where we ran into a bit of trouble. At the end of the day, we weren’t able to find candidates we felt had a straightforward path of victory in this.”
Cunningham added that it was “difficult” to find candidates who would stand up to the two-party establishment.
“At the end of the day, pushing back against your respective political party is difficult in this duopoly. The establishment does not reward dissent,” he told Cavuto. “So we found it difficult to find the leaders to step up with the courage to be able to say, ‘Ok, we are putting our country first, and, you know, damn the consequences within our respective parties.”
Multiple names were floated as potential presidential candidates for No Labels, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and former New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie. Cunningham also showed interest in former South Carolina Republican Governor Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the GOP primary, and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who ran against Biden in the Democratic primary.
Some Democrats have expressed concern about third-party candidates in this election potentially taking votes away from the president as he seeks to catch up to Trump in the polls in multiple vital battleground states. Along with Kennedy Jr., who is polling at around 10% nationally, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West — both leftists — are running for the White House.
“Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run, and hungrier for unifying national leadership, than ever before,” No Labels said on Thursday. “But No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House. No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down.”
The group added that it will “remain engaged over the next year during what is likely to be the most divisive presidential election of our lives.”
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