By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The third-party No Labels group will stay out of the 2024 U.S. presidential race if polling shows its candidate would play a "spoiler" role by helping to elect either the Democratic or Republican nominee, co-chairman Joe Lieberman said on Sunday.
The group will on Monday release what it calls a "common sense" agenda of policies meant to help unite the country behind a cooperative moderate alternative to the partisanship that characterizes contemporary U.S. politics.
Lieberman, a former U.S. senator and unsuccessful vice presidential candidate, said No Labels hopes to offer a legitimate "third choice" candidate.
"We're not in this to be spoilers," Lieberman told ABC's "This Week" program. He spoke a day before the group was due to release its agenda in New Hampshire, an early primary state.
"If the polling next year shows, after the two parties have chosen their nominees, that in fact we will help elect one or another candidate, we're not going to get involved," he said.
Others involved in No Labels include businessman John Hope Bryant, civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis Jr., Republican former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, and Republican former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory.
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin was due to speak at Monday's No Labels event in New Hampshire, feeding speculation that he could be weighing a third-party candidacy.
Opinion polls suggest the November 2024 election will again pit Democratic President Joe Biden against Republican former President Donald Trump. Both have disapproval ratings above the 50% mark.
No Labels has raised concerns that it could wind up playing a spoiler role in 2024, as political analysts say Ross Perot did for Republicans in 1992 when Bill Clinton won and Ralph Nader for Democrats in 2000 when George W. Bush won.
Former Democratic Senator Doug Jones said a third-party No Labels candidate could not secure the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win. But he said a No Labels candidate could help Trump regain the White House he lost to Biden in 2020.
"It looks like they will be a spoiler in favor of Donald Trump and that will be the biggest threat to democracy that we have seen since Jan. 6," Jones told the ABC program, referring to a 2021 assault by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie rejected the group's approach outright on Sunday.
"I think it's a fool's errand," the former New Jersey governor told ABC, predicting that the 2024 election can be won only by a major party nominee.
Lieberman insisted that the group offered a much needed alternative. Lieberman, then-Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore's running mate in 2000, later quit the party to win a final term in the Senate as an independent,
"The problem is not the third choice that No Labels is offering the American people. The problem is the American people are not buying what the two parties are selling anymore," Lieberman said.