by Mark Cuban, the billionaire businessman and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, told NBC News Thursday that he will not run for president in 2024 as No Labels pushes for a third-party, bipartisan presidential ticket on next year’s ballot.
«No. My family would disown me,» Cuban wrote in an email.
The entrepreneur, who publicly flirted with an independent run for president in 2020, confirmed that he has been involved in previous discussions with No Labels, the bipartisan group currently spending money to secure ballot access for a third-party presidential campaign in all 50 states. But the group’s founder, Nancy Jacobson, tells NBC News that deliberations about possible candidates «are not something we spend a lot of time on.»
“I like that they are trying a new path,” Cuban wrote. «I think the two-party system is broken.» He added that No Labels’ effort to form a 2024 ticket is «very important.»
No Labels will hold a convention in Dallas next April, when it intends to choose a Democrat and a Republican who could run against those two parties’ presidential candidates.
Former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, the national co-chair of No Labels, said he would not comment on specific people discussed internally by the group for possible candidacy.
Two sources familiar with the No Labels talks said the group had not narrowed the pool of potential candidates to just people who had held elected office.
“The threat of them entering a candidate could give them leverage to influence the positions of one or both parties and possibly encourage them to move to the middle, which I think would be a positive,” Cuban wrote.
The “Shark Tank” investor said he also supports the Center for Competitive Democracy, a group that helps with ballot access for third-party candidates. He also backs efforts to use ranked-choice voting in elections, which advocates say could open space for candidates from alternatives to both major parties.
