Third-party candidate can’t win in 2024, former Obama campaign manager says

The campaign manager for former President Obama’s 2012 reelection victory argued that a third-party candidate cannot win the presidential election in 2024. 

Jim Messina, who also served as White House deputy chief of staff, said in an op-ed in Politico on Monday that the effort by No Labels to put forward a “unity ticket” composed of a Democrat and a Republican would only spoil President Biden’s reelection chances. 

“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 said. “The group behind it, No Labels, is pushing a dangerous lie that would simply serve to put [former President] Trump back in the White House.” 

Messina pointed to the lack of success of third parties in presidential contests historically and the Electoral College system as reasons for his prediction. 

He noted the last third-party candidate to win any electoral votes was former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who won 46 electoral votes exclusively in the South with a campaign focused on backing segregation. 

Since then, Ross Perot has been the most successful third-party candidate, winning almost 20 percent of the popular vote in 1992, but carrying no states. 

“Can No Labels twist the data and make an argument that Perot could have won if he had done things differently? Sure! But that’s like saying I could have been the quarterback of the Denver Broncos — technically true, but come on!” Messina said. 

He said the winner-take-all system of the Electoral College causes the two main political parties to look to build large coalitions, encouraging voters to default to voting for them over fear of wasting their vote on a candidate who cannot win. 

No Labels has spent months discussing the prospect of launching a unity ticket, with polls showing many Americans do not want Trump or Biden to be their respective parties’ nominees in 2024. The organization had been planning a convention in Dallas in the spring to decide whether to nominate a ticket, but Axios reported last month it instead will conduct a virtual process to choose. 

The group has said its goal is to have a ticket that can win the presidency and has pushed back against criticism, much from Democrats, that it would throw the election to Trump. 

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has stirred rumors about whether he would run under the No Labels banner following his decision to not run for reelection to his Senate seat. He told CNN on Sunday he has “no timeline” for deciding whether to mount a presidential run. 

Messina argued that polls showing many want a third-party candidate does not mean they will ultimately vote for them next November. He noted that Libertarian Gary Johnson reached as high as 10 percent in 2016 and Perot at one time led George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton in the polls, only for them to receive much lower support on Election Day in 1992. 

“This points to a larger truth: Americans think a third party is needed, even if they won’t vote for one. Voters want to express discontent with their party. Sure, nearly half of the electorate thinks a third party is necessary, but No Labels mistakenly assumes this means those voters will actually vote for one,” he said. 

“Once Americans get a good look at the alternatives, like Perot or Johnson, they end up sticking with the major parties.” 

Messina warned that No Labels could help decide the election, with such narrow margins in the key states that determined the winner in 2016 and 2020. 

“Any well-funded third-party candidate would be a disaster for our republic — and risks putting us on a direct path to a dictatorship,” he said.