No Labels reportedly reached out to allies of former New Jersey governor Chris Christie about the former candidate's interest in a third-party run, NBC News reported Thursday.
The group, which has sought to field a bipartisan third-party presidential ticket this November, reportedly spoke with allies and donors of Christie in the weeks leading up to his Wednesday announcement that he was leaving the Republican primary race, though it is unclear whether the former candidate authorized the talks.
Christie campaign manager Maria Comella told the outlet that neither Christie nor anyone on the campaign had spoken to the group, and the group said that it was focusing on "ballot work" and would not provide commentary on candidates.
It is unclear whether Christie would undertake such a run, according to NBC's sources, and Comella said she had not discussed the possibility with the former governor but said Christie's Wednesday speech made it clear that he was "not going away."
"I am going to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again. And that’s more important than my own personal ambition," Christie said in his speech announcing the suspension of his campaign.
No Labels co-chair and former senator Joe Lieberman was open about his warmness toward Christie's involvement with the group.
"I’d like to reach out to him and see if he, Gov. Christie, is at all interested in being on a bipartisan No Labels Unity ticket this year. He could be a very strong candidate," Lieberman said in a radio interview Thursday before the news about the probe broke.
Christie, when he launched his campaign in July, rejected the idea of running with No Labels, calling it a "fool's errand."
"They think they know who they’re going to hurt," he said at the time. "They want to hurt Donald Trump if he’s the nominee. But, you know, when you get into a third-party campaign—we saw this with Ross Perot, we saw this later with Ralph Nader—you never quite know who you’re going to hurt in that process."
Lieberman addressed Christie's comments Thursday, floating his hope that the former governor had changed his mind.
"Look, earlier in the year when he was asked about No Labels, he basically said it was not an effort that had any chance of succeeding, but maybe the world will look different to him now," he said.
At the same time, as Lieberman reiterated Thursday, the group's leadership does not want to aid Trump. No Labels co-chair Dr. Ben Chavis said in June that "No Labels is not and will not be a spoiler in favor of Donald Trump in 2024."
Some recent polling has indicated that third party candidates may hurt President Joe Biden more than Trump in November. A Tuesday poll in Michigan indicated the former president would blow out the incumbent by 8 points in the state in a head-to-head matchup. Trump's lead expanded to double digits when pollsters threw in third-party candidates, including hypothetical No Labels candidacies of Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) and Liz Cheney.
Another poll from last month in which Trump beat Biden in seven swing states similarly found that the president performed better in most of the states without third-party candidates in play.
There are doubts, however, as to whether No Labels has the resources to yield a formidable candidate. The Washington Free Beacon reported in June that there was little evidence that the group had enough money to undertake the $70 million effort it had promised. The November release of its 2022 tax documents revealed it had $20 million on hand at the start of 2023, $50 million less than the group had pledged to spend on a possible candidacy.
The news of No Labels's probing of Christie's interest came hours before the Associated Press reported that former Maryland governor Larry Hogan stepped down as co-chair of the group, feeding speculation that Hogan may run on the party's ticket.