The arm of No Labels devoted to gaining ballot access raised zero dollars in the first six months of the year, according to tax filings, casting doubt on the third-party group's ability to fund a presidential bid in 2024.
From January to June, Insurance Policy for America, Inc., brought in no cash, according to its latest tax filings. No Labels launched the group in 2021 as an "insurance policy" that would help it obtain ballot access should voters show they want a third presidential choice come 2024.
No Labels has in recent weeks signaled it will nominate a third-party presidential candidate next year, prompting fear from Democrats who say the endeavor would hand former president Donald Trump another term. But the group's latest filings raise questions about whether that panic is warranted. The ballot access group during the first six months of 2023 spent less than $1 million, money that mostly went to a single firm for consulting fees. The filings did not include the group's cash on hand.
Much of the Left's fears surrounding No Labels hinges on a single, unvetted claim: that the group is prepared to spend $70 million in 2024 on a third-party candidate. But the source of that number is a single September 2022 New York Times column, and No Labels has repeatedly refused to answer whether it has anything even close to that amount of money. As of the end of 2021, the group controlled just $10 million.
Senior advisers to President Joe Biden nonetheless met with No Labels in June to demand the group shut down its political operation. No Labels has provided its own polling to argue that a third-party bid may not help Trump.
The group's political action committee, No Labels 2024, does not appear to be in healthy fiscal shape either. Its latest Federal Election Commission filings show it raised just under $1.5 million from the start of the year to the end of June and spent only $100,000 of that in six months—hardly the potential nine-figure war chest necessary to invest in a serious presidential campaign.
No Labels' lack of both funds and a presidential candidate has not stopped a deluge of reports on the group's activities as an existential threat to Biden. Politico reported last month on the "third-party nightmare for Democrats" and the "major threat to Biden" that groups such as No Labels pose. NPR echoed that framing in its own report about the "consternation in some quarters about the impact [No Labels] could have in a close election."
Neither No Labels nor the leader of Insurance Policy for America responded to requests for comment.
As of July, No Labels has gained ballot access in just four states. The group has not named who would lead its third-party bid, although Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) has flirted with the possibility on multiple occasions.