No Labels drops plans for presidential ticket
The centrist group No Labels has abandoned its plans to run a presidential ticket in the 2024 election, having failed to recruit a candidate, its leader, Nancy Jacobson, said on Thursday.
The group, which said last year it had raised $60 million to put forward what it called a bipartisan “unity ticket,” had suffered a string of rejections in recent months as prominent Republicans and Democrats declined to run on its ticket. The group had told donors and members that it would put forward a candidate if President Biden and former president Donald J. Trump were the main parties’ nominees.
“Today, No Labels is ending our effort to put forth a Unity ticket in the 2024 presidential election,” Jacobson said in a statement. “Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run and hungrier for unifying national leadership than ever before. But No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House. No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down.”
The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the decision by No Labels to forgo a presidential campaign.
The group’s move means one fewer outsider campaign for the major parties to worry about, in a presidential field that has several independent and third-party candidates.
For months, Democratic allies of Biden, who viewed No Labels as a prominent threat to his reelection effort, had worked to marginalize the group and pressured potential candidates not to agree to run on its ballot line. In recent weeks, the party apparatus has focused its attacks on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the political scion mounting an independent campaign for president.
“From the beginning, our intent was to convince candidates that they should not accept the nomination,” said Matt Bennett, a cofounder of Third Way, the centrist group at the middle of the effort to block No Labels’ efforts. “We and our allies in a broad coalition made the case that not only was there absolutely no hope of winning, but they would be spoilers for Trump.”
By last fall, No Labels’ leadership was prospecting among moderate Republican politicians to run as the group’s candidate. But even among them, the recruitment efforts stumbled. As other outsider candidates emerged, No Labels began to seem like less of a threat.
In a statement on Thursday, No Labels said it would “build on the momentum we have gained over the last year to continue representing unity and giving voice to America’s commonsense majority.”
When former senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the highest-profile No Labels supporter, died last week, the organization was left with little political firepower to recruit potential candidates. At that point, it had been turned down by figures including Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and former governors Larry Hogan of Maryland, Jon Huntsman of Utah, and Bill Haslam of Tennessee.
“There was tremendous pressure on people economically and politically not to do it,” said former representative Tom Davis of Virginia, a No Labels cofounder. “What’s after this? You run, you lose. You help elect Trump.”
No Labels was facing deadlines in the coming weeks to secure access to state ballots, some of which require a full presidential ticket on the application. On Thursday, Jacobson said the group was on the ballot in 21 states.
The group also tried to court Nikki Haley and Chris Christie, both former Republican governors who abandoned their presidential bids this year. Both declined. Another prospective recruit, former lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan of Georgia, a Republican, withdrew his name from consideration last month.
David H. Petraeus, the retired general and former C.I.A. director, was also approached and said no, he told The New York Times last month.
Only some would-be No Labels recruits talked publicly about why they had declined the group’s overtures. But several seemed to share Christie’s sentiment.
“If my candidacy in any way, shape, or form would help Donald Trump become president again,” he said last week, “then it is not the way forward.”
NEW YORK TIMES
Neb. doesn’t change how electoral votes are awarded
Nebraska legislators on Wednesday night overwhelmingly declined to change how the state awards its Electoral College votes to a winner-takeall system.
Shrugging off pressure from former president Donald Trump and Governor Jim Pillen, who have pushed Republicans to move forward on the issue, members of the unicameral state Legislature rejected in bipartisan fashion an effort to attach a provision that would have made the change to an unrelated bill. Had it passed, the change could have helped
Trump in his race against President Biden.
It is still possible that the provision could be attached to another bill, but there are only days to go before the legislative session ends.
Nebraska is one of two states — the other being Maine — that award an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, meaning it’s possible for a candidate who loses the state to nonetheless receive some credit.
In Nebraska’s case, this means two electoral votes are awarded to the statewide winner and three are awarded to the district winners. Two of the districts, and the state as a whole, are solidly Republican. But the 2nd District, in and around Omaha, is a swing district and voted for Biden in 2020.
In an election as close as this November’s may be, that single electoral vote could be decisive. There is a realistic scenario — Biden wins Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; Trump wins Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada — in which it could make the difference between a Biden victory and an Electoral College tie.
If that were to happen, the election would be thrown to the House of Representatives, and Trump would be likely to win. NEW YORK TIMES
New York AG questions bond posted by Trump
NEW YORK — The New York attorney general’s office on Thursday took exception to a $175 million bond that Donald Trump recently posted in his civil fraud case, questioning the qualifications of the California company that provided it.
The dispute stems from a $454 million judgment Trump is facing in the case, which the attorney general’s office brought against the former president and his family business.
Trump was obligated to obtain the bond as a financial guarantee while he appeals the penalty — or else open himself up to the possibility that Attorney General Letitia James would collect the judgment. Without a bond in place, James could have frozen his bank accounts and begun trying to seize some of his New York properties.
Trump appeared to stave off this calamity Monday when he posted the $175 million bond. Although he was originally required to secure a guarantee for the full $454 million judgment, an appeals court granted him a break, allowing him to post the smaller bond.
The company providing the bond — which is a legal document, not an actual transfer of money — essentially promises New York’s court system that it would cover $175 million of the judgment against Trump if he loses his appeal and fails to pay.
Now, however, James is raising questions about the company that provided the guarantee to Trump, Knight Specialty Insurance Co., owned by Don Hankey, a billionaire who made his fortune with subprime loans.
In a court filing Thursday, James noted that Knight was not registered to issue appeal bonds in New York, and so she demanded that the company or Trump’s lawyers file paperwork to “justify” the bond within 10 days. James is seeking to clarify whether Knight, which had never posted a similar court bond before aiding Trump, is financially capable of fulfilling its obligation to pay the $175 million if Trump defaults.
Hankey and Amit Shah, the CEO of Knight Insurance Group, the parent company of Knight Specialty Insurance Co., did not immediately return requests for comment. Shah told CBS News that Knight had issued the bond through Excess Line Association of New York, a nonprofit created by New York state that serves as facilitator between brokers and regulators.
Knight Insurance Group is one of eight companies under the Hankey Group, all based in Southern California. Hankey earned a reputation as a provider of risky and lucrative loans, specifically collateral-based debt.