If the No Labels organization convinced Haley to be its nominee, laws in eight states would represent a significant obstacle.
There’s a surprising amount of buzz that No Labels, the pox-on-both-your-houses movement that wants to give Americans an option beyond Joe Biden and Donald Trump, is interested in nominating Nikki Haley, despite Haley saying she’s not interested in that option.
Joe Cunningham, the former South Carolina Democratic congressman and current national director of No Labels, told Fox News this weekend, “Nikki Haley is someone we would definitely be interested in.”
At first glance, it appears that state election laws in several key states would bar Haley from appearing on the ballot as a third-party presidential candidate, once she has lost the GOP primary. Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Arkansas, and Alabama bar a candidate who has lost a presidential primary in one party from running for office as the nominee of another party.
South Carolina law states, “A person who was defeated as a candidate for nomination to an office in a party primary or party convention must not have his name placed on the ballot for the ensuing general or special election” unless a candidate dies, resigns or is disqualified.
No person shall qualify with any political party as a candidate for nomination to any public office when such person has qualified for the same primary with another political party as a candidate for nomination by that party for any public office; nor shall a state, county, or municipal executive committee of any political party certify any person as the candidate of that party when such person has previously qualified as a candidate for nomination for any public office for the same primary with another political party
But there will be debates about whether those state laws apply to presidential candidates, or just candidates for state office. There are those who argue that sore loser laws cannot apply to presidential elections, because the voter is not actually voting for the presidential candidate, but for the elector to the electoral college. This dispute would have to be sorted out by the Supreme Court, on a tight deadline before people start casting ballots for the 2024 election. In Minnesota and Virginia, early voting for the general election starts September 20.
Add up the electoral votes of the eight states listed above, and you’re at 131 electoral votes that would be out of reach for No Labels, including Haley’s home state, unless the Supreme Court struck down those sore loser laws.
A No Labels ticket of Haley and “Democrat to be named later” was never likely to get 270 electoral votes, but it would be frustrating to concede that many states and electoral votes before the campaign began. Then again, presuming Haley could be persuaded to accept the nomination, she is likely to rank among the best known and most popular options for No Labels. She’s already convinced 21,027 people to vote for her in Iowa, 140,491 people to vote for her in New Hampshire, and 298,801 people to vote for her in South Carolina. (In Nevada, she won 0 votes because she filed to run in the primary, not the caucus. Trump filed for the caucus and won with 99.11 percent of the vote against Ryan Binkley.)