No luck for No Labels as centrist group tries to launch third-party presidential ticket

It was a rough week for No Labels, the influential centrist group that's been working for over a year towards launching a bipartisan, third-party 2024 presidential ticket.

Hours after former New Jersey governor and two-time Republican White House contender Chris Christie announced he wouldn't join the No Labels so-called "unity" ticket, their most well-known champion died.

The group suffered a major loss with the death of former longtime Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Party's 2000 vice presidential nominee and a 2004 presidential candidate who later became an independent and was a No Labels founding co-chair.

In public, Lieberman was a tireless defender of the group's push for a third-party ticket. And privately, he was a key player in No Labels' recruitment efforts.

Lieberman also repeatedly emphasized that Americans were anything but enthused about a 2024 rematch between President Biden and former President Donald Trump, and he regularly pushed back against warnings from Democrats that a No Labels ticket would pave a path to victory for Trump in November.

"That's not our goal here," Lieberman told Fox News Digital late last year. "We're not about electing either President Trump or President Biden."

Hours before Lieberman's death, Christie became the latest high-profile politician to decline to join a 2024 No Labels ticket, along with fellow Republicans in former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, and moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

CHRISTIE SAYS NO TO RUNNING ON NO LABELS PRESIDENTIAL TICKET

There was also plenty of speculation that former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was the final 2024 GOP presidential nomination rival to Trump before she ended