MAYBE TERRIBLE CANDIDATE SELECTION WILL PREVENT NO LABELS FROM REELECTING TRUMP

I've been worried about the possibility that a No Labels presidential campaign could throw the election to Donald Trump, but Echelon Insights recently polled the presidential race with and without the likely No Labels candidate -- Joe Manchin -- and his impact appears to be minimal:

Without Manchin:

If the 2024 presidential election were being held today, would you vote for...

DONALD TRUMP, DEFINITELY/ PROBABLY 44%
JOE BIDEN, DEFINITELY/ PROBABLY 46%

With Manchin:

If the 2024 presidential election were being held today, would you vote for...

1. Donald Trump, the Republican candidate 42%
2. Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate 41%
3. Joe Manchin, Independent candidate 9%
4. Unsure 8%

Manchin takes a few more votes from Biden than from Trump, but the race is a tossup either way.

It's just one poll, but it's very different from last summer's YouGov poll, in which a 4-point Biden lead (Biden 46%, Trump 42%) turned into an 8-point Trump advantage when Liz Cheney was added as a candidate (Trump 40%, Biden 32%, Cheney 11%).

Again, that was just one poll -- but I think it suggested to many Democrats that any third-party campaign would disproportionately hurt Biden. But Cheney, even though she's a very conservative Republican, became a hero to some liberals because of her anti-Trump advocacy. No liberal thinks Joe Manchin is a hero. If he's a hero to anyone, it's to billionaires, lobbyists, and people who who work closely with billionaires and lobbyists (like the folks at No Labels).

A Manchin presidential run could be somewhat dangerous for Biden. You need to remember that we're a 50/50 country -- Democrats nearly always win the presidential popular vote, while the two parties alternate victories in the overall House vote, despite the fact that far more Americans identify as conservative than liberal. Here are the numbers, based on Gallup's annual survey:

The simple explanation is that the majority of moderates vote Democratic -- which means that a third-party candidate perceived as a moderate will inevitably appeal to more Democratic voters than Republican voters.

But Manchin may not appeal to anyone.

The 9% figure is probably inflated -- polls tend to exaggerate the appeal of third-party candidates. (In the spring of 1980, John Anderson was polling at 19% to 25%; in November he won 6.6% of the vote. In a Washington Post/ABC poll conducted in June 1992, Ross Perot led the field with 36% of the vote; he finished third, with 18.9%.)

We don't know what will happen if Manchin (or some other No Labels candidate) actually enters the race. We don't know who the running mate will be, how many state ballots the ticket will be on, or how much campaign money will be behind the effort. But Manchin might be no one's idea of a president. His impact on the race could be insignificant. And in states where even a small Manchin vote could tip the balance, maybe Democrats will run negative ads in which they can finally portray Manchin as the corporate lackey he's always been. The only people who actually like unabashed corporate lackeys are old-school Republican voters, and Democrats would be happy to have them vote for Manchin.

So go ahead, No Labels -- run this guy.