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      With a Centrist Manifesto, No Labels Pushes Its Presidential Bid Forward

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      The bipartisan group, facing enormous opposition from Democrats, hopes a new policy document will advance its political cause — and possible third-party White House run.A new political platform focused on cooperative governance by the bipartisan group No Labels has something for everyone to embrace — and just as much for both sides to reject.For example, the government must stop “releasing” undocumented migrants into the country, it maintains. But the government must also broaden legal immigration channels and offer a path to citizenship to those brought to the country as children.Or this one: The constitutional right to bear arms is inviolable but must be tempered with universal background checks and age restrictions on the purchase of military-style semiautomatic rifles.Then there is this: A woman must have a right to control her reproductive health, but that right has to be balanced with society’s obligation to safeguard human lifeNo Labels’ possible third-party challenge for the presidency next year has drawn fire from liberals, centrists and even some members of Congress who support the group’s principles but fear that their efforts — based on the seemingly high-minded ideals of national unity — could greatly damage President Biden’s re-election campaign and hand the White House back to Donald J. Trump.But at an event on Monday, the group will formally release what it calls a “common sense” proposal for a centrist White House, in hopes of shifting the conversation from the politics of its potential presidential bid to the actual policies that it believes can unite the country and temper the partisanship of the major party nominees. If the ideas do not take political flight, or if one or both of the parties adopt many of the proposals the group’s leaders say no challenge will be necessary.Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, is set to speak at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire for his support of the bipartisan political group No Labels on Monday.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesSkeptics will say that the 67-page, 30-point document on the “politics of problem solving” by No Labels’ chief strategist, Ryan Clancy, is too heavy on identifying problems and too light on concrete solutions. But within the manifesto are surprisingly substantive policy proposals, many of which will anger conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats but could please the less activist center.“Right now we have campaigns run by Biden and Trump that are far more about style than substance,” said Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and supporter of No Labels who reviewed the document. “This is trying to call the campaigns to be about substance, not style, to actually engage with the American people about the issues that confront us.”Monday’s event, at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., will be a significant step for the embattled group. Two of No Labels’ most prominent supporters and possible standard-bearers — Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Jon Huntsman Jr., the former Republican governor of Utah — will share the stage to talk up the new agenda.The location, a traditional venue for presidential aspirants in the state that will hold the first Republican primary in six months, is intended to be a signal of the group’s seriousness.“I’ll give them credit in that No Labels seems to be tapping into what America is looking for right now,” said Chris Sununu, New Hampshire’s Republican governor. “Whether it’s viable and where it goes, we’ll see.”The manifesto is stuffed with poll-tested proposals, some bland and others that would require major shifts for both parties. Universal background checks for firearm purchases have been blocked by Republicans since the proposal emerged with Mr. Manchin’s name on it after the massacre at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.Most Democrats will find the document’s glancing reference to climate change unsatisfying, especially since it couples support for a domestic renewable energy industry with an adamant opposition to restrictions on domestic fossil fuel production.The policy proposals call out Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden by name for pledging not to cut Social Security benefits, as it warns that the public pension system is nearing insolvency. Its solution to the thorny question is more a guideline: No one at or near retirement should face a benefit cut, nor should middle-class or lower-income Americans.Its recognition of a woman’s right to control her reproductive health and society’s right to protect life is simply a punt on the issue that could most animate Democratic voters next year.“Abortion is too important and complicated an issue to say it’s common sense to pass a law — nationally or in the states — that draws a clear line at a certain stage of pregnancy,” that section concludes.Such failures of policy will fuel detractors who call No Labels’ effort a subterfuge to draw reluctant voters from Mr. Biden and secure Mr. Trump’s election.“We like puppies and kittens and pie,” said Rick Wilson, a former Republican and a founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. “They think they can be tapioca vanilla pudding as long as possible, to keep up the message, ‘Hey, we’re just centrist do-gooders. What could possibly go wrong?’ And the thing that could go wrong is the election of Donald Trump.”Love it or hate it, No Labels supporters say the manifesto should encourage the parties to at least start talking about a common set of issues.“Having this kind of common sense, bipartisan agenda that starts from place of acknowledging that we have to work together is of great value to the national discourse,” said Representative Jared Golden, a conservative Democrat from Maine.Opponents of No Labels argue that Mr. Biden is already governing by consensus. They say that two of the president’s biggest economic achievements — a major infrastructure bill and a law to reinvigorate domestic semiconductor manufacturing — were negotiated by the administration and Republicans and Democrats in Congress, many of whom are already affiliated with No Labels.Jon Huntsman Jr., the former Republican governor of Utah who served in the Obama administration, is among those supporting the No Labels effort.Alex Wong/Getty ImagesA third pillar of Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign — clean energy and climate change programs, as well as measures to hold down prescription drug prices — was largely written by Mr. Manchin, the top prospect to carry a No Labels ticket, said Matt Bennett, the longtime head of the centrist Democratic group Third Way and one of the organizers of a burgeoning anti-No Labels effort.The coalition opposing the No Labels effort — which already includes Third Way, the progressive group MoveOn.org, the Democratic opposition research firm American Bridge and the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, formed by Republican consultants — will be joined next week by a bipartisan coalition headed by Richard A. Gephardt, a former Democratic House leader.To No Labels’ most ardent opponents, the group’s lofty rhetoric and appeals to centrism mask a secret agenda to return the Republicans to the White House. They point to a number of No Labels donors, such as Woody Hunt, senior chairman of Hunt Companies, John Catsimatidis, head of Gristedes Foods, and Ted Kellner, a Milwaukee businessman, who have given lavishly to Republicans, including Mr. Trump, suggesting such donors know full well that No Labels’ main role now is to damage the Democrats.Polling conducted by an outside firm for Mr. Gephardt appeared to indicate that a candidate deemed moderate, independent and bipartisan could not win the presidency but would do great damage to Mr. Biden’s re-election effort. In a national survey by the Prime Group, a Democratic-leaning public opinion research and messaging firm, Mr. Biden would beat Mr. Trump by about the same popular vote margin he won in 2020. But were a centrist third-party candidate to enter the race, that candidate could take a much greater share of voters from Mr. Biden than from Mr. Trump.The same group surveyed seven swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and found that Mr. Trump would win three of those states in a head-to-head matchup with Mr. Biden, Mr. Biden two. In two of the states, Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump would essentially tie, according to the survey.Nancy Jacobson, a founder of No Labels, said — as she has before — that the effort should be considered an “insurance policy” for an American electorate dissatisfied with a potential rerun of the Biden-Trump election of 2020. The “common sense” document is a catalyst for tempering that dissatisfaction or channeling it into a genuine political movement.But in an interview, Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor of Maryland and a national co-chairman of No Labels, said he would consider joining a No Labels presidential ticket should both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden win their parties’ nominations.“If it gets to the point where three-quarters of the people in America don’t like the choices, we might have to do something to put the country first,” he said. “I’ve always said I put the country before party, so it’s something I wouldn’t reject out of hand.”While many voters may see protest candidates as a way to express frustration with their options without much consequence, several recent presidential elections may have been swayed by the presence of a third-party candidate. The Green Party ran Jill Stein in 2016 and Ralph Nader in 2000 — both elections with razor-thin margins in key states — who drew from the Democratic nominees. The presence of H. Ross Perot in the 1992 campaign siphoned off voters from George H.W. Bush, which benefited Bill Clinton.“Not a single one of us is worried they’re going to win the election and Jon Huntsman will be president,” said Mr. Bennett, the Third Way leader. “We’re worried they will spoil the election.” More

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      While We Wait for the Supreme Court to Make Up Its Mind …

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      Bret Stephens: Gail, I hope your summer is off to a great start. We’re in the season of Supreme Court decisions, waiting any day for the Harvard and U.N.C. ruling to come down. Assuming the court overturns affirmative action for private and public universities, and maybe beyond that, what do you think the effect will be?Gail Collins: Bret, I guess we’ll have to see the how and the why of the much-dreaded decision before it’s possible to tell.Bret: The fine print is what has really mattered in past affirmative action cases, going back to the Bakke decision in 1978, which ruled that explicit racial quotas were unconstitutional, but that race could be considered a plus factor in admissions.Gail: I’m hoping the court will leave some room for schools and employers to continue taking race into account — and also things like economic background, childhood home environment — factors that help produce a diverse America where people who come from impoverished communities and disadvantaged homes can get some breaks.Bret: I’d have a much easier time accepting affirmative action if the principal criterion was class, not race. If universities thought of themselves more as ladders of social mobility and less as curators of racial rebalancing, they could still give a lot of poorer minorities a lift while also opening their doors to larger numbers of low-income white students who might otherwise have been denied a shot at admission.Gail: You can’t leave race out, but yes, it’s important to mix it with other parts of a biography. We have to protect schools’ right to create a diverse freshman class every year — one that will help students learn the joys and struggles and fun and exasperation that comes from living with people who aren’t like you in color, creed or background.Bret: Or viewpoint. Diversity is also about making sure universities don’t become ideological monocultures where people look different but share nearly all the same opinions and assumptions.Gail: To me, diversity is a very, very important goal — you don’t want to be living in a world in which all the folks of one race or class never interact with folks from another.How about you?Bret: Diversity can be a virtue, but it doesn’t have to apply in every conceivable setting or override other considerations, especially academic excellence. I don’t think it’s any secret that students whose families are from East and South Asia outperform many of their peers in high school academics, just as Jewish kids from immigrant backgrounds did a couple of generations ago. If the end of affirmative action means that top-tier universities will be demographically overrepresented with students of Asian background for the simple reason that they worked that much harder to get there, should that be considered a problem?Gail: Of course we have to include, and celebrate, the many fabulous students with East and South Asian backgrounds. And part of the educational opportunities they deserve is a chance to be in school with kids from other backgrounds. So that they graduate with the ability to work with, supervise and take directions from Black, white and Hispanic colleagues.It’s a win-win.Bret: It would be win-win if universities vastly expanded their enrollments, perhaps by doing more of the coursework online, so that every academically qualified student got in. For now it’s zero-sum: At Harvard in 2013, according to the initial lawsuit, the admission rate for Asian American students was 19 percent, even though 43 percent of the admitted class would have been Asians if based on academic performance alone.Gail: Have a feeling this isn’t going to be the last time we debate this issue. But Bret, we’ve had a busy news week and I want to check in on some of the big developments. Starting with … Hunter Biden! Am I right in recalling he’s not your favorite presidential offspring?Bret: He’s running neck-and-neck with Don Jr. and Eric in that contest, though I hear that James Madison’s stepson, Payne Todd, may have been the worst of them all.Gail: Hunter’s legal issues seem to have been pretty much resolved — he’s pleading guilty to two far-from-major tax crimes, getting probation and pledging to remain drug-free for two years.Bret: For which we wish him well.Gail: Two questions: Is this resolution fair? And what political impact will it have? Some Republicans are acting as if this is gonna be a large cloud over the Biden administration. That the president won’t be able to campaign for re-election without being followed by “Huckster Hunter’s Dad” banners.Bret: Hard to judge without seeing all the evidence. The U.S. attorney in the case, David Weiss, was appointed by Donald Trump and kept in his job by Merrick Garland to complete the investigation, so this hardly seems a case of partisan favoritism. And Weiss says the investigation is “ongoing,” which I have to assume means he’s taking a close look at Hunter’s fishy foreign business deals.But the political timing is lousy and plays into Donald Trump’s narrative that the Biden administration is weaponizing the Justice Department against him while letting off Biden’s son with a slap on the wrist.Gail: I’ve always believed that as long as there was no reasonable evidence that Joe was actually involved in any of Hunter’s smarmy let’s-make-a-deal-did-you-happen-to-notice-my-last-name schemes, the whole thing has no political impact whatsoever. Nobody but desperate Republicans cares about Hunter’s misdeeds, and if anything, I think he stirs sympathy for his father.Bret: Well, desperate Republicans means tens of millions of Americans. But since we keep touching on the subject of errant children of famous politicians, your thoughts on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?Gail: I know the polls suggest he might be a problem for Biden. A good chunk of that is just boredom with the current election picture and name recognition for Junior. Once voters take a serious look at him, his anti-vaccine craziness and overall right-wing loopiness, I’m confident those polls will plummet.Bret: I would call it left-wing loopiness, but go on.Gail: Nevertheless, if he runs as a third-party candidate, he always has the potential to screw things up — just a sliver of votes in a swing state could do the trick. Which is why I’m so hostile to third-party presidential candidates.Bret: I don’t see him running, Nader-like, as a third-party candidate. But I think one reason some Democrats are rallying to him is because they are wary of the idea of a second Biden term, even if they think he’s done a decent job in his first.Gail: We were both hoping Biden wouldn’t run again because of the age issue, but here we are. And he’s still a thousand leagues better than Trump, who’s only a few years younger. So Joe’s the one.Bret: They see him as old and faltering, they don’t think Kamala Harris is up to the job if she needs to succeed him, and they worry that any Republican save Trump could defeat him. If Bobby Jr. wins in New Hampshire because Biden isn’t even on the ballot, it could shake things up, and he could wind up being the Eugene McCarthy of this political season: not the nominee, but the catalyst for change. I’ve been saying this for months, and I’m still willing to bet you a good Zinfandel that Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, is the surprise Democratic nominee next summer. Mark Leibovich seems to agree, by the way.Gail: All I will say is that I am looking forward to the Zinfandel.Bret: And speaking of catalysts, how about that Chris Christie?Gail: He’s not going to be elected president, but gosh I would so love to see him in the Republican primary debate this August. Think there’s a chance he’ll raise enough money to qualify?Bret: For sure. He’ll get it because he’s a bring-the-popcorn sort of candidate who will make the debates interesting and because a lot of the big Republican donors long ago soured on Trump and because all the other Republicans in the race look like a bunch of moral midgets auditioning for cabinet-level jobs in the next G.O.P. administration and because the choice of Ron DeSantis or Trump is starting to look about as appetizing as the choice between Vladimir Putin and Yevgeny Prigozhin — scorpions in the proverbial bottle who really deserve each other.Gail: This is the reason you’re my favorite Republican.Bret: Ex-Republican. Still conservative.Christie’s essential theory of the race is that the only way to defeat Trump is the “They pull a knife, you pull a gun” theory that Sean Connery espoused as the best way to defeat Al Capone in “The Untouchables.” Except Christie aims to bring a .44 magnum, a rocket-propelled grenade and maybe even some HIMARS artillery — rhetorically speaking, of course.Gail: Of course.Bret: Which is all another way of saying that he’ll tell the truth about Trump. It will be a joy to watch, however it turns out.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      This Is Not the Time for a Third Presidential Candidate

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      I’ve long been a fan of No Labels, the organization that works to reduce political polarization and Washington gridlock. I spoke at its launch event in 2010. I’ve admired the Problem Solvers Caucus, a No Labels-inspired effort that brings Republicans and Democrats in Congress together to craft bipartisan legislation. Last September, when No Labels wanted to go public with its latest project, I was happy to use my column to introduce it to people.That project is a $70 million effort to secure ballot access for a potential third presidential candidate in 2024. America needs an insurance policy, the folks at No Labels argued. If the two major parties continue to go off to the extremes, then voters should have a more moderate option, a unity ticket of Republicans and Democrats who are willing to compromise to get things done.In the nine months since my column appeared, No Labels analysts have conducted polling that they believe shows that their as yet to be selected third candidate could actually win the White House. Today, they argue, the electorate is roughly evenly split among those who lean Democratic, those who lean Republican and the unaffiliated. There’s clearly an opening for a third option.Furthermore, voters are repelled by the thought of a Joe Biden-Donald Trump rematch. Large majorities don’t want either man to run. Fifty-nine percent of voters surveyed in that No Labels analysis said if that happened, they would consider voting for a third moderate candidate. If the No Labels candidate won just 61 percent of this disaffected group and the remainder was split evenly between two other candidates, he or she would capture a plurality of the electorate and could win the presidency.This is a unique historic opportunity, the No Labels folks conclude, to repair politics and end the gridlock on issues like guns, abortion and immigration.Others disagree. Official Washington, especially Democratic Washington, has come down on No Labels like a ton of bricks.Moderates are now at war with one another. The centrist Democratic group Third Way produced a blistering research memo arguing that a third presidential candidate would have no chance of winning. It would siphon off votes from Democrats and hand the White House back to Trump.The analysts at Third Way point out that no third-party candidate has won any state’s electoral votes since 1968. There is no viable path to 270 electoral votes. The No Labels candidate would have to carry not just swing states, but also deep-blue states like Maryland and Massachusetts and deep-red ones like Utah and Montana, which is not going to happen.The simple fact is, the Third Way analysts argue, Democrats need moderates more than Republicans do. Because there are more conservatives than progressives in America, Democrats need to get 60 percent of the self-identified moderate votes to win nationally, they say, while Republicans need to get only 40 percent. You suck those voters away to a third party and you’ve just handed the keys to the Oval Office to Trump.Personally, I have a lot of sympathy for the No Labels effort. I’ve longed for a party that would revive the moderate strain in American politics exemplified by Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, John McCain and contemporaries like Michael Bloomberg.If the 2024 election was Bernie Sanders versus Ron DeSantis, I’d support the No Labels effort 1,000 percent. An independent candidate would bring this moderate tradition into the 21st century, and if Sanders or DeSantis ended up winning, his agenda might not be my cup of tea, but I could live with him.Donald Trump changes the equation. A second Trump presidency represents an unprecedented threat to our democracy. In my view, our sole focus should be to defeat Trump. This is not the time to be running risky experiments, the outcomes of which none of us can foresee.Furthermore, I’m persuaded that a third candidate would indeed hurt Biden more. Trump voters are solidly behind him, while Biden voters are wobbly. Then there’s the group of voters called the “double-haters.” They dislike both candidates. The Wall Street Journal recently quoted Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster, who said Biden was up by 39 points with such voters.Finally, if America wants a relative moderate who is eager to do bipartisan deal making, it already has one. In fact, he’s already sitting in the Oval Office. Joe Biden doesn’t get sufficient credit, but he has negotiated a bunch of deals on infrastructure, the CHIPS Act, guns, the debt limit. As long as Biden is running, we don’t need a third option.I’m not saying my friends at No Labels have chosen the wrong strategy. I’m saying this is not the right election to carry out their strategy. I wouldn’t blame them for keeping their options open for a few more months (something unexpected might happen). But if it’s still a 50-50 Biden-Trump race in the fall, I hope they postpone their efforts for four years. With Trump on the scene, the potential rewards don’t justify the risks.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Cornel West Announces Third-Party Bid for President

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      Dr. West said he would run as part of the People’s Party, which was founded by a former campaign staff member for Senator Bernie Sanders.Cornel West, the progressive activist and professor, announced a presidential campaign on Monday with the People’s Party, a third party led by a former campaign staff member for Senator Bernie Sanders.“I enter in the quest for truth, I enter in the quest for justice, and the presidency is just one vehicle to pursue that truth and justice — what I’ve been trying to do all of my life,” Dr. West said in a campaign video posted on Twitter.In the video, Dr. West said he had decided to run as a third-party candidate because “neither political party wants to tell the truth about Wall Street, about Ukraine, about the Pentagon, about Big Tech.” He called former President Donald J. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, a “neo-fascist,” and President Biden a “milquetoast neoliberal.”Dr. West has taught at Yale, Princeton and Harvard and is currently a professor of philosophy at Union Theological Seminary. He is known for his progressive activism, including his sharp criticism of former President Barack Obama.His campaign video emphasized a list of issues, including wages, affordable housing, abortion rights, universal health care, climate change and “the destruction of American democracy.”The People’s Party was founded by Nick Brana, who worked on Mr. Sanders’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, but later broke away. The party tried to recruit Mr. Sanders after his 2016 campaign, but he declined to get involved and again sought the Democratic nomination in 2020.“Do we have what it takes? We shall see. But some of us are going to go down fighting,” Dr. West said in his announcement video, leaning into the camera and exaggeratedly enunciating the syllables of “fighting.” “Go down swinging with style and a smile.” More

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      ‘No Labels’ Eyes a Third-Party Run Against Biden and Trump. Is Joe Manchin Interested?

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      The centrist group is gaining steam — and raising money — in its effort to get a candidate on the 2024 ballot, with Joe Manchin at the top of their list.The bipartisan political group No Labels is stepping up a well-funded effort to field a “unity ticket” for the 2024 presidential race, prompting fierce resistance from even some of its closest allies who fear handing the White House back to Donald J. Trump.At the top of the list of potential candidates is Senator Joe Manchin III, the conservative West Virginia Democrat who has been a headache to his party and could bleed support from President Biden in areas crucial to his re-election.The centrist group’s leadership was in New York this week raising part of the money — around $70 million — that it says it needs to help with nationwide ballot access efforts.“The determination to nominate a ticket” will be made shortly after the primaries next year on what is known as Super Tuesday, March 5, said Nancy Jacobson, the co-founder and leader of No Labels. A national convention has been set for April 14-15 in Dallas, where a Democrat-Republican ticket would be set to take on the two major-party nominees. (Mr. Biden is facing two long-shot challengers, and Mr. Trump is the Republican front-runner.)Other potential No Labels candidates being floated include Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent, and former Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, who has said he would not run for the G.O.P. nomination and is the national co-chairman of the group. But Mr. Manchin has received most notice recently after speaking on a conference call last month with donors.“We’re not looking to pick the ticket right now,” former Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican and longtime associate of the group, cautioned in an interview on Wednesday as he prepared to meet with donors and leaders in New York. “Our focus is getting on the ballot.”Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent, is also on No Labels’ radar.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesThe drive has already secured ballot spots in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado and Oregon and is now targeting Florida, Nevada and North Carolina. Ms. Jacobson called the project “an insurance policy in the event both major parties put forth presidential candidates the vast majority of Americans don’t support.”“We’re well aware any independent ticket faces a steep climb and if our rigorously gathered data and polling suggests an independent unity ticket can’t win, we will not nominate a ticket,” she said.Caveats aside, the effort is causing deep tensions with the group’s ideological allies, congressional partners and Democratic Party officials who are scrambling to stop it. Third-party candidates siphoned enough votes to arguably cost Democrats elections in 2000 (Al Gore) and 2016 (Hillary Clinton). Republicans say the same thing about Ross Perot’s role in blocking George H.W. Bush’s re-election in 1992.“If No Labels runs a Joe Manchin against Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I think it will be a historic disaster,” said Representative Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat and, until now, a strong supporter of the organization. “And I speak for just about every moderate Democrat and frankly most of my moderate Republican friends.”People close to Mr. Manchin have their doubts he would join a No Labels ticket. He must decide by January whether to run for re-election in his firmly Republican state. But he does see an avenue to return to the Senate.The state’s popular Democrat-turned-Republican governor, Jim Justice, is running for the Republican nomination to challenge Mr. Manchin, but so is West Virginia’s most Trump-aligned House member, Alex Mooney, who has the backing of the deep-pocketed political action committee Club for Growth.If Mr. Mooney can knock out Mr. Justice, or damage him badly by bringing up the governor’s centrist record and days as a Democrat, Mr. Manchin sees a path to re-election, and no real prospect of actually winning the presidency on the No Labels ticket.But he is keeping his options open, at least as he raises money under the No Labels auspices.“Let’s try to make people come back together for the sake of the country, not just for the sake of the party,” Mr. Manchin told the group’s donors on a recent conference call leaked to the news site Puck this month.Opponents are mobilizing to stop No Labels. Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, sent a cease-and-desist letter this month to the group’s director of ballot access, accusing the organization of misrepresenting its intentions as it presses for signatures to get on the state’s presidential ballot.The Arizona Democratic Party sued this spring to get No Labels off the state’s ballot, accusing it of “engaging in a shadowy strategy to gain ballot access — when in reality they are not a political party.”One of No Labels’ founders, William Galston, a former policy aide to President Bill Clinton, publicly resigned from his own organization over the push. In an interview, he pointed to polling saying that voters who dislike both Mr. Trump and President Biden — “double haters” — say overwhelmingly they would vote for Mr. Biden in the end. Given an alternative, that might not be the case.And Democratic members of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a centrist coalition aligned with No Labels that actually does No Labels’ legislative work, are in open revolt.“I can think of nothing worse than another Trump presidency and no better way of helping him than running a third-party candidate,” said Representative Brad Schneider, Democrat of Illinois.Former Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, is the national co-chairman of No Labels.Andrew Mangum for The New York TimesNo Labels has long had its detractors, variously accused of ineffectuality, fronting for Republicans and existing mainly to raise large amounts of money from wealthy corporate donors, many of whom give primarily to Republicans.But the grumbling criticism took on a more urgent tone when Puck posted a partial transcript of a leaked conference call that No Labels held with its funders. On it, Ryan Clancy, the group’s chief strategist, said ballot organizers were at “600,000 signatures and counting,” and nearing slots on the ballot in “roughly 20 states,” with their eyes on all 50.Mr. Manchin joined the call as the closer: “The hope is to keep the country that we have, and you cannot do that by forcing the extreme sides on both parties,” he said.Mr. Manchin’s political appeal beyond West Virginia is questionable. The loudest discontent among Democrats with Mr. Biden has come from young voters, many of whom are animated by the issue of climate change, and they are not aligned with the coal-state Democrat on that.Mr. Manchin is not a climate denier in the traditional sense. He has repeatedly referred to the “climate crisis” caused by human activities.Yet Mr. Manchin, whose state produces some of the highest levels of coal and natural gas nationally and who has earned millions from his family’s coal business, has long fought policies that would punish companies for not shifting more quickly to clean energy and has accused Mr. Biden of promoting a “radical climate agenda.”But Democrats worry. The southwestern suburbs of Pittsburgh abut West Virginia, and it would not take many Democrats bolting to Mr. Manchin to hand Pennsylvania to Mr. Trump, they warn.Ms. Jacobson, on the leaked conference call, said No Labels had been “Pearl Harbored” by a March memo from the Democratic centrist group Third Way. The memo was bluntly titled: “A Plan That Will Re-elect Trump.”“It wasn’t exactly a sneak attack,” Third Way’s longtime leader, Matt Bennett, countered in an interview. “We are enormously alarmed.”Lisa Friedman More

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      Repulsed by Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump? Tough.

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      The presidential race sure does seem like it’ll wind up coming down to Biden vs. Trump — and a whole lot of people would rather have an alternative.Here’s an important early message: Even if you aren’t thrilled by the Republican and Democratic options come Election Day, don’t vote for anybody else.We’re talking here about the attraction of third parties. So tempting. So disaster-inducing.The lure is obvious. Donald Trump’s terrible and Joe Biden’s boring. Much more satisfying to go to the polls and announce you’re too far above the status quo to vote for either.The way so many people did in 2016, when Trump won the presidency thanks to the Electoral College votes of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Which Hillary Clinton would probably have carried if the folks who were appalled by Trump had voted for her instead of the Libertarian or Green Party candidates.OK, ticked-off swing staters, how did that work for you in the long run?This brings us to No Labels, a new group that’s warning it might launch a third-party candidacy if it isn’t happy with the two major party nominees.“We care about this country more than the demands of any political party,” No Labels announces on its website. Its founding chairman, Joe Lieberman, told interviewers that his group believes the American people “are so dissatisfied with the choice of Presidents Trump or Biden that they want a third alternative.”Yeah. But let’s stop here to recall that Lieberman is a former U.S. senator, Democrat of Connecticut. Who ran for vice president with Al Gore on the Democratic ticket in 2000, hurt Gore’s chances with a terrible performance in a debate with Dick Cheney, then made a totally disastrous attempt to run for president himself four years later.Hard to think of him as a guy with big answers. And about that business of voters wanting a third choice: A lot of them do, until it turns out that option throws the race to the worse of the top two.Remember all the chaos in the 2000 Florida vote count? The entire presidential election hinged on the result. In the end, Ralph Nader, the Green Party nominee, got more than 97,000 votes there. In a state that George W. Bush eventually won by 537.Now Nader had a phenomenal career as a champion of consumer protection and the environment. But this was a terrible finale. His candidacy gave Floridians who felt that Gore was not very exciting a chance to declare their disaffection. It gave them a chance to feel superior. It gave the country a new President Bush. And a war in Iraq.I talked with Nader about his role much later, and he basically said the outcome was Gore’s fault for being a bad candidate. This conversation took place when the country was bearing down on the 2016 election, and Nader vowed not to vote for either Trump or Clinton. “They’re not alike,” he acknowledged, but added, “they’re both terrible.”Think that was the last time I ever consulted Ralph Nader.The third-party thingy also comes up in legislative races. Remember the 2018 Senate contest in Arizona? No? OK, that’s fair. The Democratic candidate was Kyrsten Sinema, who seemed to be in danger of losing because the Green Party was on the ballot, capable of siphoning off a chunk of her supporters. Even though Sinema had a good environmental record! Well, a few days before the election the Green candidate — have I mentioned her name was Angela Green? — urged her supporters to vote for Sinema. Who did squeak out a win.As senator, Sinema became an, um, unreliable Democratic vote. Who you might call either principled or egocentrically uncooperative. In any case, it didn’t look like she’d have much chance of being renominated. So now she’s very likely to run as … an independent.Another senator who frequently drives Democratic leaders crazy is Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who hasn’t announced his own plans. But he’s started to flirt with a presidential run. On a No Labels ticket? “I don’t rule myself in and I don’t rule myself out,” he helpfully told an interviewer.Sigh.Politicians are perfectly well aware of what effect a third option can have on elections. Back in 2020, a group of Montanans who’d signed petitions to put the Green Party on the ballot discovered that the Republicans had spent $100,000 to support the signature-gathering effort — undoubtedly in hopes that the Green candidate would take votes away from former Democratic governor Steve Bullock when he ran for the Senate. The irate voters went to court and a judge finally ruled that they could remove their names.Didn’t help Bullock win, but it does leave another message about the way too many options can be used to screw up an election. Really, people, when it comes time to go to the polls, the smartest thing you can do is accept the depressing compromises that can come with a two-party democracy. Then straighten your back and fight for change anyhow.Don’t forget to vote! But feel free to go home after and have three or four drinks.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Facing Tough Senate Race, Montana G.O.P. Looks to Change the Rules

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      An election bill moving through the Republican-led Legislature would rewrite the rules for a single race: the looming battle against Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat.HELENA, Mont. — Republicans typically cry foul when accused of rewriting election laws to benefit their candidates. But as the Montana Legislature debates a new voting bill, even some G.O.P. lawmakers concede that this one appears designed to help them win elections — more precisely, one very important election.The bill would rewrite the rules for the state’s next U.S. Senate race and only that race. The 2024 fight to oust Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat, is expected to be one of the tightest in the country.The legislation would shift the contest from a traditional election into a “top two” primary system, making it exceedingly difficult for third parties to reach a general election ballot. Some believe the system would keep the state’s vibrant Libertarian Party from siphoning votes from the Republican nominee.The 2024 fight to oust Jon Tester, a Democratic senator from Montana, is expected to be one of the tightest in the country.Sarah Silbiger/ReutersWhile supporters of the bill say it makes elections fairer, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Helena have claimed that the bill reeks of political interference. Some have chafed at the involvement of Washington operatives, especially allies of Senator Steve Daines. A Montana Republican and head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Mr. Daines is leading the party’s campaign to win control of the Senate in 2024.Brad Molnar, a Republican state senator who opposes the bill, criticized Washington meddling in Montana politics, saying that if national Republicans get involved, “we will lose.” He predicted that the bill would backfire on Republicans if angry Libertarians flock to Democrats. “They will be angry. Why wouldn’t they be? I’m not a libertarian, and I’m angry.”The bill’s sponsor, State Senator Greg Hertz, said he was trying to ensure that Montana’s senator would win with more than 50 percent of the vote and to also tamp down on parties’ interference with third-party candidates.Mr. Hertz said he had designed the bill to apply only to the upcoming Senate race because he saw it as a test run. He expected the Legislature to examine expanding the system to congressional, state legislative and other statewide races in the future.The system would mirror California’s primaries, where all the candidates from all the parties appear on the same ballot, and the top two vote-getters face off in the general election.The bill passed the Montana Senate last week by a narrow margin, with seven Republican senators voting against it. A House committee will hold a hearing on the bill on Friday.State Senator Greg Hertz, the bill’s sponsor, says he was trying to tamp down on parties’ interference with third-party candidates.Janie Osborne for The New York TimesMultiple former Republican officials are expected to testify against it. The Libertarian Party has also been organizing opposition to the bill. The state’s Republican governor has not weighed in.But the forces crafting the bill and pushing it through are powerful.Chuck Denowh, a lobbyist who worked for Mr. Daines’s 2020 campaign and has ties to the Montana Republican Party, has been working closely with Mr. Hertz. At one point he suggested critical changes that focused the bill on Mr. Tester’s race, according to emails reviewed by The New York Times.“We would like it to apply only to United States Senate races,” Mr. Denowh said in an email sent on March 26 to multiple lawmakers, including Mr. Hertz. “We’d like a sunset in 2025,” he added. It was not clear whom “we” was referring to, and Mr. Denowh declined to answer questions.Mr. Hertz quickly agreed with the changes and asked State Senator Steven J. Fitzpatrick, the House majority leader, who was copied on the email chain, to make the newly reworked proposal “a priority bill.”The sudden changes and swift reintroduction after an initial failure in committee caught Republican lawmakers by surprise.In a text message chain among eight Republican senators, Mr. Fitzpatrick answered lawmakers’ concerns by telling them the bill “came from Daines” and that it was the “brainchild of the Jason Thielman,” according to screenshots of the texts obtained by The New York Times. Mr. Thielman is a longtime Daines aide who is now the executive director of the N.R.S.C.“No wonder I don’t like it,” responded Senator Dan Salomon, a Republican state senator who voted against the bill.When asked about the text messages, Mr. Fitzpatrick said that he had never spoken directly with Mr. Daines about the bill, but that he believed the effort originated with national Republicans.Mr. Daines has not weighed in publicly. Rachel Dumke, a spokeswoman for Mr. Daines’s office, declined to comment.At least two Republican lawmakers in Montana said they had been pressured by Mr. Daines’s office to support the bill. And one Republican state senator received a text message from state Republican Party officials explicitly saying the bill was needed to defeat Mr. Tester. The lawmakers asked for anonymity to disclose private discussions.In an interview, Mr. Hertz said he had been working on election issues since last September, initially exploring adding a runoff election. But he acknowledged that his efforts seemed to gain national interest when he zeroed in on the Senate race.“Yeah, I heard from a lot of people in D.C. at that point in time,” Mr. Hertz said. He added that he hadn’t spoken with Mr. Daines personally but had spoken with Mr. Thielman repeatedly about the status of the bill.A spokesman for the N.R.S.C., Mike Berg, declined to comment on Mr. Thielman’s involvement.“The optics of the situation, I felt, were bad … I want to do it across the board,” said Jason Small, a Republican state senator who voted against the bill.Janie Osborne for The New York TimesMr. Hertz said that he thought the changes would help third parties. “This gives them an opportunity in the primary to win more votes. And if you have enough support, you will end up on the general ballot, and that will give you an opportunity to make your case to the voters of Montana.”A spokeswoman for Gov. Greg Gianforte declined to respond to questions, pointing to the governor’s brief statement at a news conference on Thursday.“A number of other states have tried things like this,” Mr. Gianforte said. “I think it’s kind of an interesting idea, but we won’t take a firm position until we actually see the final legislation.”Some Republican lawmakers who were supportive of the idea of a top-two election system balked when they saw that the proposal had been amended to apply only to the 2024 Senate election.“If we’re going to do a top-two primary, I’m all for it. I think it’s wonderful,” said Jason Small, a Republican state senator who voted against the bill. “The optics of the situation, I felt, were bad if we’re going to just single out one particular race and try it there. I want to do it across the board.”Some Republicans in the statehouse noted that the bill might not have much of an impact on the outcome. They cited a recent study by the election website FiveThirtyEight that found that Mr. Tester was likely to have prevailed in all of his elections even if the Libertarian candidate hadn’t run.The Tester campaign accused Montana Republicans of attempting a power grab.Republicans are “trying to change local election laws to look more like California’s in an attempt to gain political power for themselves,” said Shelbi Dantic, a spokeswoman for Mr. Tester’s re-election campaign.So far, no front-runner has emerged to challenge Mr. Tester in November. Republicans in Helena expect Representative Matt Rosendale, a conservative who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election, to explore a run. Tim Sheehy, a wealthy businessman and military veteran, is being recruited by some Republicans in Washington to run, as first reported by Axios, though he has not made any formal announcement.As news about the bill spread around the state, Republican lawmakers said they were receiving calls and texts from constituents claiming an unease with the bill. Senator Jeff Welborn, a Republican state senator, noted that the complaints weren’t coming from just Democrats.Mr. Welborn said that he had received multiple text messages, including one from a constituent who said the bill amounted to election interference. “This guy also has Republican candidate signs in his yard,” Mr. Welborn said. “He saw this as a really, really bad look on Montana as a state for trying this one on.”Former Republican leaders in the state have also been vocal in their opposition.“It’s a horrible commentary about how you value the votes of your fellow citizens,” said Marc Racicot, a former Republican governor and former chair of the R.N.C. “They didn’t sign up as guinea pigs.”Republicans in favor of the bill said that they believed it would cut down on the interference by major parties with third-party candidates. In the past, Democrats have attempted to promote Libertarian candidates to try and divert votes from Republicans, and Republicans have fought to get Green Party candidates on the ballot to try and draw support away from Democrats.“I think at least with the top-two primary you eliminate some of that nonsense,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said, adding, “It’s dirty politics at its worst.” More

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      In Congress, Party Switching Cuts Both Ways

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      If history is any guide, Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, the latest lawmaker to change her stripes, faces an uncertain future.WASHINGTON — When Phil Gramm, a conservative House member from Texas, left the Democratic Party in 1983, he immediately quit Congress and forced a special election that he won as a newly minted Republican six weeks later. He called his leave-and-start-from-scratch approach the “only honorable course of action,” since voters had elected him as a Democrat.Arlen Specter, a longtime centrist Republican senator from Pennsylvania, was blunt when he suddenly became a Democrat after backing some Obama administration initiatives in 2009. He said he had consulted his political strategist and been informed that polls showed he could not win a Republican primary; hence, he needed to switch parties if he was to have any hope of political survival. He lost anyway, suffering defeat in a Democratic primary the next year.Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who left the Democratic Party and proclaimed herself an independent last week, was less transparent about her move. She dismissed any suggestion that she had made it to better position herself for a 2024 re-election bid after angering Arizona Democrats by regularly bucking her party, even though poll numbers in the state clearly indicate that she would have a difficult time winning a Democratic primary.Though she asked Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, to allow her to keep her committee slots on the Democratic side of the aisle, she refused to say she would align with Democrats, like two other Senate independents, Senators Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. She didn’t even want Democrats declaring that they still retained their new 51-to-49 majority, though that is clearly the result for Senate organizational purposes at the moment.Mr. Schumer on Tuesday even dared to utter those numbers.“Senator Sinema asked me to keep her committees and that keeps the Senate committees functioning in a 51-49 vein, and that’s what we want to do,” he said.The switch was another drama-filled episode featuring the enigmatic first-term senator. Democrats are hoping that once the immediate moment passes, Ms. Sinema will continue to work with them for the next two years as she has on numerous major pieces of legislation over the past two years, and that little will change except the letter after her name signifying her partisan affiliation.“She’s always been independent,” said Senator Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat who has teamed up with Ms. Sinema in multiple bipartisan “gangs” to strike deals on issues such as gun control and infrastructure. “She’s been an effective legislator, and I will continue working with her.”A New U.S. Congress Takes ShapeFollowing the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats maintained control of the Senate while Republicans flipped the House.Divided Government: What does a split Congress mean for the next two years? Most likely a return to gridlock that could lead to government shutdowns and economic turmoil.Kyrsten Sinema: The Arizona senator said that she would leave the Democratic Party and register as an independent, just days after the Democrats secured an expanded majority in the Senate.A Looming Clash: Congressional leaders have all but abandoned the idea of acting to raise the debt ceiling before Democrats lose control of the House, punting the issue to a new Congress.First Gen Z Congressman: In the weeks after his election, Representative-elect Maxwell Frost of Florida, a Democrat, has learned just how different his perspective is from that of his older colleagues.But Democrats are also keeping a wary eye. Any further move away from the party by Ms. Sinema could thrust them back into the 50-50 split they were so thrilled to escape with the re-election of Senator Raphael Warnock in Georgia last week, only to have Ms. Sinema rain on their victory parade days later.Then there is Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, who has his own 2024 re-election difficulties ahead. Mr. Manchin assured reporters this week that he had no plans to join Ms. Sinema in the stripes-changing camp, but also said he could not predict the future — a comment no doubt duly noted by his Democratic colleagues.While Mr. Warner is correct that Ms. Sinema has always been independent, her change of affiliation does offer her some distance from her old party if she wants to emphasize it. Both Republicans and Democrats will be watching to see if that translates into a new approach. She said in interviews, an op-ed and a video statement that she does not intend to operate any differently than she has to date.“I’m going to keep doing exactly what I do, which is just stay focused on the work and ignore all the noise,” she told CNN.But Republicans will no doubt try to capitalize on her new status. For instance, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, used Twitter to urge the new independent to insist that Senate committees be evenly divided instead of the one-seat advantage Democrats are expecting to have beginning in January.“Now Sen Sinema is independent & she correctly states ppl tired of partisanship,” he said in a tweet. “One step she cld take even though she won’t caucus w Republicans is push to keep equal party numbers on committees like this congress. That wld result in more bipartisanship.”Such a move by Ms. Sinema, suffice it to say, would be frowned on by Democrats.Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, on Tuesday noted his own strong relationship with Ms. Sinema.“She and I talk all the time,” he said. “She has a lot of friends on our side of the aisle, including me, and I think she’s decided she’s genuinely an independent and is charting her own course, and I wish her well.”In her announcement, Ms. Sinema sought to emphasize her independent streak to diminish any criticism that she had played bait and switch with Arizona voters by running as a Democrat only to abandon the party label four years later when it appeared she might not fare well in a party primary.“When I ran for the U.S. Senate, I pledged to be independent and work with anyone to achieve lasting results,” she said.But she ran as a Democrat, benefiting from millions of dollars in party spending, and some Arizonans clearly feel cheated, judging by the swell of attacks on her emanating from the state. Mr. Schumer and other Democrats say it is way too early to weigh in on whether they would back her or a declared Democrat when 2024 rolls around.Party-switching on Capitol Hill gained steam in the Reagan years as multiple congressional Democrats from the South moved to the Republican side, in line with the sweeping political realignment coursing through the region. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it did not.Representative Bill Grant, a lifelong Democrat from Florida’s conservative Panhandle, was courted by President George H.W. Bush to jump the Democratic ship in 1989 by promising to campaign for him the next year.“This action is not going to change the way I vote,” Mr. Grant promised in an appearance with the president.It did change the way his constituents voted when it came to him. He was defeated by Democrat Pete Peterson the next year after Mr. Peterson, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, accused Mr. Grant of a breach of faith with voters by changing parties midstream.Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, who is retiring this year after six terms, became an enthusiastic Republican after the party’s congressional election sweep in 1994, and has survived quite comfortably.“I got the same amount of votes as a Republican as I did as a Democrat,” Mr. Shelby said this week. “I was elected twice as a Democrat and four times as a Republican. I had no compunction about it. I have no regrets.”Ms. Sinema’s political fate is yet to be determined. Democrats just hope she sticks with them in the near future.“I’m sure it was an important and maybe difficult decision for her to make personally,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat. “I am going to work with Kyrsten in her capacity as long as she’s working toward the same goals that I share.” More