Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was prepared to mount an independent bid for the presidency as the No Labels candidate if the group could find a prominent Democratic running mate, according to a Chicago Sun-Times report last week.
“The ticket came this/close to reality weeks ago,” said lawyer Dan K. Webb, told Sun-Times reporter Michael Sneed.
Webb said Christie “suddenly signaled late last month he would run if we secured him a Democrat as a running mate.” He said No Labels “was matching polls Chris [Christie] was conducting showing a third-party candidate could split the vote three ways if Chris ran.”
But Webb said the plan to find a Veep to complete a Christie unity ticket “didn’t work,”
“We failed. We couldn’t do it,” he told the Sun-Times. “No Democrat would run, because they were afraid of leaving the party and never going back.”
Webb told Sneed that’s when Christie “pulled the plug.”
“Up to that point, Chris was in the game,” he said.
Soon after Christie said he wouldn’t run as an independent, No Labels dropped their candidate recruitment efforts.
The Wall Street Journal reported that No Labels also sought to recruit Republicans Nikki Haley, Larry Hogan and Liz Cheney, and Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
In 1980, when liberal Rep. John Anderson (R-Illinois) switched from the Republican presidential race to an independent bid, he recruited Patrick Lucey, a former Democratic governor of Wisconsin, to run for vice president.