Why No Labels won’t field a 2024 presidential candidate

ATLANTA – Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said Friday that the decision by No Labels to stay out of the presidential race this year has left him and many Americans with “no candidate to vote for.”

Duncan had talked with No Labels about running but decided against it. He has consistently said he will not vote for Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

“Seventy percent of the voters don’t like the current selection they’ve got,” he said. But he said the two-party system is just too hard to overcome.

Still, he said the effort to build a bipartisan approach to governing is likely to grow.

“I feel like we’re at that moment where either the parties need to correct their paths, and that certainly doesn’t feel like that’s going to happen in the 2024 cycle, or else there’s going to be continued energy behind some sort of third-party effort going forward.”

The bipartisan organization said in a statement Thursday that it had found no candidate with a credible path to winning.

Before Thursday’s announcement, No Labels had hoped to field a “unity ticket” for 2024.

Party leaders planned on selecting a presidential candidate from one major party and a vice presidential candidate from the other.

The organization had gained ballot access in dozens of states, but a spokesperson confirmed that Georgia was not one of those states.

No Labels’ announcement also came after the death of its founding chairman, former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman.

Duncan met with Lieberman when he was considering a run. He said meeting Lieberman was a great honor, adding, ” Every room he walked into, he didn’t have to explain his operating style. It was known, it was understood.”