No Labels Candidate Pool Narrows as Anti-Trump Former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Bows Out of Consideration
Mr. Duncan became a liberal hero in the wake of the 2020 election when he defended the validity of his state’s presidential election results.
The anti-partisan group No Labels that is searching for a 2024 duo to lead their national ticket is seeing their pool of options narrow even further as a stridently anti-Trump former Georgia lieutenant governor bows out of consideration.
“After careful deliberation, I have withdrawn my name from consideration for the No Labels presidential ticket,” Geoff Duncan said in a statement to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Mr. Duncan served as lieutenant governor to Governor Kemp from 2019 to 2023. He decided against running for reelection in 2022, saying that “national events” such as the 2020 election fraud claims had “deeply affected” his family.
“It was an honor to be approached, and I am grateful to all those who are engaged in good-faith efforts to offer Americans a better choice than the Trump vs. Biden re-match,” Mr. Duncan says of the No Labels consideration.
Instead of running for office in 2024, Mr. Duncan says he is “focused on healing and improving the Republican Party with a GOP 2.0 so we can elect more common- sense conservative candidates in the future.”
Mr. Duncan is the latest potential No Labels candidate to withdraw from consideration. The former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley rejected calls to join the ticket, as did Senators Manchin and Sinema. A former Maryland governor whose name had been floated, Larry Hogan, is instead running for the Senate this year in his home state.
Despite the defections, No Labels has vowed to move forward with its selection process for presidential and vice presidential candidates. They say that the two candidates must be of opposing parties.
“Earlier today, I led a discussion with the 800 No Labels delegates from all 50 states,” the chairman of the No Labels national convention and a former Dallas mayor, Mike Rawlings, said in a statement on March 10. “These citizen leaders have spent months discussing with one another the kind of leadership they want to see in the White House in 2024. These are some of the most civic minded, thoughtful, and patriotic Americans I have ever met.”
Beyond candidates, No Labels has also recently lost a high-profile leader on the administrative side. A former North Carolina governor, Pat McCrory, stepped down as an unpaid co-chairman of the organization. He did not explain his decision, but urged Americans to give a No Labels ticket a chance this November.
