Fred Upton is a jovial, moderate Republican from Michigan, but he has made many enemies in Washington after 36 years in Congress. First at the base of his own party, because he was one of only ten Republican MPs to vote for a second impeachment trial against Donald Trump in 2021 after the storm on the Capitol. And now, as a former MP, there are also Democrats who are outraged by the septuagenarian and his fellow members of the group called “No Labels”: They are about to give Trump the keys to the White House back.
Because “No Labels”, an association of politicians and activists from both parties, wants to offer Americans an alternative. “Seventy percent of Americans don’t want to have to choose between Biden and Trump again,” explains co-chair Upton in an interview with the FAZ
For this majority of citizens, his organization is working on a third option: a team of a Republican and a Democrat running for the offices of president and vice president. Upton reports on the phone that they are in the process of putting various candidates through their paces. Names would be announced in March.
Strategists are tearing their hair out
This may sound promising to many voters. But many Washington strategists are tearing their hair out. Because Trump's supporters would hardly be deterred, but Trump's opponents would probably be divided between the experienced, old Joe Biden and the fresh option.
Upton rejects this. “According to our surveys, we are likely to take away voters from Biden and Trump to the same extent.” After all, the incumbent Democratic president’s popularity ratings, like those of his Republican predecessor, are below forty percent; both are met with great rejection. “I think we have a good chance of getting the necessary 270 voters in the Electoral College.”
That's a bold bet. The last time a “third-party candidate” managed to get a majority in a state and thus any votes in the Electoral College was in 1968: the renegade Democrat George Wallace received 46 votes from six states. The historical exception is explained by the great upheaval of that time. The Democrats had pushed through civil rights laws, Wallace advocated racial segregation. But Upton says the country will also be in an unprecedented situation in 2024. “Never before have 70 percent of voters opposed a rematch between an incredibly unpopular former president and an incredibly unpopular sitting president.”
When the House of Representatives elects the President
The fact that “third party candidates” never received any more voters after 1968 does not mean that they never determined the outcome of the election. The Democrat Bill Clinton would hardly have entered the White House in 1992 if the Texas billionaire Ross Perot had not poached, especially in George Bush's Republican territory – he received almost 19 percent of the vote. This is also why Upton really wants to nominate a Republican as the presidential candidate for the “no-label camp”; the Democrat would have to settle for playing second fiddle to the vice president. The logic goes that the risk of damaging Biden more than Trump would be lower.
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