[As part of our mission to foster awareness and meaningful discussions on third parties and independent candidates, Independent Political Report hosts a monthly open thread. This thread serves as a platform for readers to share news and stories about third parties and independent candidates that may or may not be covered elsewhere.
Furthermore, we kindly request that readers adhere to our Civility Policy. Please refer to the website’s footer for a comprehensive list of current policies. – JWE, 7/12/23]
We understand that Senator Manchin, oft mentioned as a No Labels Presidential candidate, is going to New Hampshire. He speaks at St. Anselm’s College on Monday July 17th. John Huntsman, former U.S. Ambassador to China and former Governor of Utah, will join him.
Manchin is co-Chair of No Labels. Democratic Party officials are reportedly alarmed that the No Labels Party will selectively draw votes from the Democratic Party, making it more likely that Republican Donald Trump will win the next election.
Democratic Party leaders are also alarmed that Cornel West may receive the Green Party Presidential nomination. West is a strong progressive, who would be expected to draw votes from Joseph Biden’s re-election campaign. The Hill provides more extended coverage.


Wu has qualified for a runoff in Wichita against the incumbent Mayor getting the most votes. Wichita is a city of 400k.
Note to readers: an updated plugin prompted a fatal WordPress error causing the site to temporarily restrict posting, commenting, and back-end access until our host can access the offending file. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to have things fixed as soon as possible.
Hat tip to RRH Elections:
“TV newscaster Lily Wu (L) has outraised all her rivals combined in next week’s California Rules Top Two race for Mayor of Wichita, including incumbent Brandon Whipple (D). Wu, who has a majority of GOP institutional support despite being a registered Libertarian, has raised over $200K, with councilman Brian Frye (R) taking in roughly $90K and Whipple and nonprofit exec Celeste Racette (I) pulling in around $35K each.”
https://www.kcur.org/2023-07-25/wichita-mayoral-candidate-lily-wu-far-outraises-opponents-including-incumbent-mayor/
I purchased the site. I have now given it to the Outsider Media Foundation, which will be and by be more visible..
Dropping by IPR for the first time in, I think, years. The site is now in the hands of GP? Good deal! I like the new look (or at least new to me).
I saw a segment on one of the Saturday morning political shows a couple of weeks ago, in which they claimed to have confirmed that leading political consultants of both the Democratic and Republican party, as well as the lincoln project, had met that week — in secret — to discuss ways to stop the no labels “party“ from running a candidate.
I channel surf between all the networks, so I am not sure if it was CNN or MSNBC. I know it was not Fox, since they run that horrible “friends” thing even on Saturdays.
I’ve never seen Republicans whine about Libertarians, even when they were trotting out a fairly known ex-GOPer for prez, like Gary Johnson, the way Democrats whine about Greens.
When former Democrat Joe Lieberman, the founding chairman of No Labels, lost the Democratic primary and ran as an independent in his final US Senate campaign, he drew more Republican votes than Democratic ones.
The 2000 and 2012 Democratic average for US Senate was 59.0% while the Republican average was 38.65%.
The 2006 election saw Lieberman get 49.7%, the Democrat 39.7%, and the Republican 9.6%.
So, the Democrat was 19.3% lower than the average and the Republican was 29.5% lower.
I’m sure Lieberman and Manchin think they can do the same to Trump. They may not expect to win, but they might expect to draw more heavily from Republicans.