John Avlon, one of the original founding members of the No Labels movement, which later explored running a third party presidential campaign in the 2024 election cycle, won the Democratic primary in New York’s first congressional district on Tuesday.
Avlon, now a senior political analyst for CNN, handily defeated Nancy Goroff in the Democratic primary on Thursday by a margin of 19,026 votes to 8,053. Avlon will now advance to the general election against incumbent Republican representative Nicholas LaLota, who faced no primary challengers. Only Avlon and LaLota will appear on November’s election ballot, although ex-Congressman George Santos briefly announced he was mounting an independent bid before dropping out ahead of the deadline.
While now a registered member of the Democratic Party, Avlon was instrumental in organizing the No Labels organization as a co-founding leader back in 2010, along with others like now-former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Republican strategist Mark McKinnon, and current No Labels CEO Nancy Jacobson.
Much like it is today, the early No Labels organization was committed to reducing hyper-partisanship and promoting bipartisan cooperation in American politics. To that end, it frequently criticized what it regarded as extremist rhetoric and held informal meetings with members of Congress that would eventually become the Problem Solvers Caucus, which still exists today. However, Avlon eventually stepped back from taking an active role in the organization in 2013 around the time he became the editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast.
In late 2022, No Labels announced that it would consider fielding a presidential unity ticket in the event that Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden won their respective presidential primaries. Conversations increased in the following months, ultimately leading Avlon to address his former organization in a 2023 CNN opinion piece, where he publicly criticized No Labels’ idea for a unity ticket, calling it a reckless gamble. While he did not explicitly endorse Joe Biden in his article, Avlon lamented what he saw as the risks associated with a third party candidacy potentially leading to a Donald Trump victory, which he regarded as a greater threat than a second Biden presidency.
After months of searching for potential candidates and working to secure state ballot access, the organization ultimately announced in April 2024 that it would not field a ticket.
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