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A powerful network of liberal donors is joining the push to stop No
Labels’ threatened plan to launch a third-party presidential run —
warning major political funders to stay away from the group.
The donors club, Democracy Alliance, shared its thinking about the
bipartisan organization’s operation exclusively with POLITICO.
Democrats have grown increasingly concerned that an independent No
Labels ticket would function as a spoiler and help former President
Donald Trump or another Republican candidate defeat President Joe
Biden in 2024.
“No Labels has no chance of winning the 2024 election. But it has a
very real chance of tipping that election to Donald Trump and
catapulting our country into MAGA authoritarianism,” said Pamela
Shifman, president of the Democracy Alliance. “They want to splinter
the coalition of voters who banded together to defeat Donald Trump
in 2020.”
Democracy Alliance also met privately Wednesday with the center-left
group Third Way and progressive organization MoveOn to discuss No
Labels, according to several people familiar with the event who were
granted anonymity to talk about a closed-door event. Third Way and
Move On normally sit on opposite ends of the Democratic Party’s
spectrum, but they have teamed up recently in an aggressive effort
to undercut No Labels’ floated plan.
The goal of the meeting Wednesday was to sound the alarm for leading
donors and fundraisers in the party, and urge them to prevent the
well-heeled people they know from giving to No Labels. The meeting
of a few dozen people, including several donors and donor advisers,
took place on Zoom.
“I would be surprised if any of the people that were on that call
are No Labels donors themselves, but many of them in their networks
know people who probably are No Labels donors,” said Matt Bennett,
co-founder of Third Way. “What we’re trying to convince them of is
not that No Labels is a bad organization, but that this project is
very, very dangerous.”
No Labels chief strategist Ryan Clancy slammed the Democracy
Alliance in a statement.
“It’s hard to find a more striking example of Washington hypocrisy
than a group calling itself ‘Democracy Alliance’ mobilizing to stop
No Labels from getting on voting ballots in 2024,” he said. “Most
Americans have this quaint idea that democracy means the people
decide who they can vote for. Democracy Alliance apparently has a
different definition, where a few people meeting in D.C. get to
manage Americans’ electoral choices for them.”
No Labels has signaled that if it is clear by Super Tuesday that the presidential race will be between Trump and Biden, and there is a
path to victory, then it will put up a third-party candidate. The
group has secured access to the ballot in multiple states, and
reportedly has a $70 million budget for a potential third-party
effort.
Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn, said that at the
Wednesday meeting with donors the “first ask was please talk to
everyone you know about this, especially those that are political
donors.” The “second ask was give to entities and organizations that
are doing the work to try to stop them.
Third Way and MoveOn gave a presentation to the donors laying out No
Labels’ actions as well as data that they argue shows that winning
as a third-party candidate is not feasible.
Dick Gephardt, the former House Democratic leader who launched a
bipartisan group to oppose a third-party bid, also attended the
meeting Wednesday.
Bennett said that, as is typical when he makes these pitches, he got
a question at the confab about whether the groups are going to run
ads against No Labels.
“The answer to that is no, not yet. This is really a question that
is being debated among political insiders and elites at the moment,”
he said. “And No Labels has said they may not go forward with this.
And what we’re hoping is that we can help convince them not to do
it, and therefore we will never have to run a big public-facing
campaign.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/21/democracy-alliance-no-
labels-00117365
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