OPINION:
Very little surprises us at No Labels anymore. As we work to gain ballot access for an independent unity ticket in 2024, we’ve grown accustomed to hyperbolic attacks from both parties. That’s why, when Rep. Nancy Pelosi called us “perilous to our democracy” at a Washington fundraiser last week, our first reaction was to shrug and get back to work.
Yet as high-profile leaders come out with increasingly frantic statements, it is clear that the tone and tenor of the partisan campaign against us is changing. But why?
Perhaps it’s because Washington insiders are beginning to see what we see.
They see poll after poll showing that Americans loathe both parties, don’t trust their leaders in Washington, and are deeply dissatisfied with both President Biden and former President Donald Trump. Most of all, they see the historic percentage of Americans who want a third party in 2024. A recent Gallup Poll found the number to be at 63%, the highest so far this century.
It’s no wonder insiders in the current two-party system would panic when the foundations of that system began to shake. No Labels is not manifesting this movement of discontent; we are simply acting on its behalf. But since Washington can’t attack the voters whose support they have lost, they attack us instead.
They try to sow fear and misunderstanding, as Mrs. Pelosi did by making up falsehoods about our policy positions or claiming that we are spoiling Mr. Biden’s reelection chances. (As a New York Times poll released on Sunday shows, Mr. Biden is spoiling his own chances: He is trailing Mr. Trump in five of the six battleground states.)
These critics are intentionally missing the point. No Labels is not running a presidential campaign. We are creating the option for a third-party campaign in the event the voters demand one. If the partisans want to stop us, all they have to do is win back the sensible voters they lost touch with. Then we’ll gladly step aside.
Until then, our work is necessary for a very specific reason: Running a third-party ticket is not as simple as declaring an independent candidacy, as two notable candidates have already done. Instead, it requires undertaking the long, laborious and expensive process of obtaining ballot access in all 50 states, which is nearly impossible without beginning far in advance of an actual campaign.
That is what No Labels has been doing for the past year and a half. We are gaining ballot access in case Americans demand a third option next year, as it appears they will. We would then give our ballot line to an independent unity ticket and step aside to let that ticket run its own campaign.
While the ballot access process is not easy, it is protected by the Constitution for good reason. It ensures that no party — no “faction,” as our Founding Fathers called them — would have a chokehold on the presidential ballot and, thus, the White House.
That’s why it is ironic when partisan voices call us a threat to democracy. What they really mean is our exercise of a core democratic right is a threat to their party. Nowhere is it written that Republicans and Democrats are entitled to being America’s sole choices for president.
Mrs. Pelosi’s statement reveals that Democrats at an increasingly high level are anxious about how many of “their” voters are clamoring for a third party. Republicans, at least the ones paying attention to Mr. Trump’s approval ratings, are harboring the same fear.
They know that without No Labels, it is unlikely that any third party would have the ballot access required to mount a serious campaign, and thus voter discontent wouldn’t matter. Voters would hold their noses and vote for Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump.
But with No Labels, the two parties will have to compete vigorously to win back the voters whose support they squandered. And that will be difficult to do given the extremism they have fomented.
The more voters reject the two parties, the more ferociously partisans like Mrs. Pelosi will attack us. They know that with No Labels in the picture, disaffected voters have somewhere real to take their vote — and that spells trouble for the parties that have taken those voters for granted.
• Jay Nixon is director of ballot integrity at No Labels and the former Democratic governor of Missouri.
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