No Labels qualifies for Arkansas presidential ballot

The group No Labels has qualified for the 2024 presidential race in Arkansas after submitting 9,828 verified signatures, which was more than the required 5,000.

Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston informed the group that it had qualified for the ballot in a letter written July 18. The group must certify its candidates by Aug. 22, 2024, and must certify its electors by Sept. 15 of that year.

Arkansas joins five other states where No Labels has qualified for the ballot. The others are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, and Utah. The group is working to get on the ballot in other states.

It recently released its “Common Sense” policy booklet that includes 30 policy suggestions.

No Labels has not decided whether it will run a presidential ticket. Its leaders have said they want to leave that option open if the major party candidates are President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Its polling has shown many Americans do not want that choice.

If it decides to proceed, it plans to have a convention next April and nominate a unity ticket with one Republican and one Democrat. It does not plan to create a third party and would not be involved in the campaign.

It has come under fire from Democrats and others who say it would take votes from Biden and elect Trump. Co-chairman Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent, says his group won’t play a spoiler role. He said if it looks like it would help elect one candidate over the other, it won’t run anyone.

In an interview in April, Chief Strategist Ryan Clancy said the group would not decide what it will do until it knows who the major party nominees are.

“If there’s not an opening, then there’s not an opening,” he said. ”But here’s the one thing we know for sure: If a year from now, there really is an opening, but nobody had done the legwork, it would have been too late.”

The group polled 26,000 people nationwide and found that 69% didn’t want Biden and 62% didn’t want Trump to run again. Fifty-nine percent were open to a moderate independent ticket if the election were between Biden and Trump.

Clancy said No Labels’ polling and modelings see a plausible path where a unity ticket could win 25 states with 286 Electoral College votes. It takes 270 to win.

It considers a handful of states, including Arkansas, to be “stretch” states. No Labels’ model shows Trump winning here, but a moderate independent could reach almost 40%.