The centrist group No Labels has abandoned its plans to run a presidential ticket in the 2024 election, having failed to recruit a candidate, its leader, Nancy Jacobson, said on Thursday.
The group, which said last year it had raised $60 million to put forward what it called a bipartisan “unity ticket,” had suffered a string of rejections in recent months as prominent Republicans and Democrats declined to run on its ticket. The group had told donors and members that it would put forward a candidate if President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump were the main parties’ nominees.
“Today, No Labels is ending our effort to put forth a Unity ticket in the 2024 presidential election,” Ms. Jacobson said in a statement. “Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run and hungrier for unifying national leadership than ever before. 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 Wall Street Journal earlier reported the decision by No Labels to forgo a presidential campaign.
The group’s decision to bow out of the race means one less outsider campaign for the major parties to worry about, in a presidential field that has several independent and third-party candidates. Democrats had worried last year that No Labels could pull votes away from Mr. Biden, but those concerns have more recently focused on the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
This is a developing story and will be updated.