One of the biggest threats to Joe Biden’s reelection is a third party candidate — viable or not.

It wouldn’t take much for a third party or independent contender to tip the election in Donald Trump’s favor. In 2020, the presidency was decided by less than 40,000 votes in three swing states. And in 2024, third party fever seems to be on the rise. Already, Cornel West, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Jill Stein are running.

Then there’s the quixotic movement known as No Labels, which has cited a stream of polling data arguing that a large majority of Americans are crying out for an alternative to Trump and Biden.

The man producing those polls is Mark Penn, best known for two things: his devotion to centrist politics and his longtime role as the top pollster and strategist for Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Penn’s wife Nancy Jacobson runs No Labels and frequently uses Penn’s data to support her project, though he says he has no role in the organization. Penn reports that 64 percent of voters say “the country needs another choice” if it’s a Biden-Trump rematch and that most voters would consider a moderate, independent candidate as an alternative to the current president and former president.

Not surprisingly, the couple’s work has infuriated Democrats — who are spending money to discredit them, sue No Labels, thwart the group’s voter registration efforts and pressure its affiliates.

So what does Mark Penn think about all of this? We decided to ask him.

I caught up with Penn on this week’s Playbook Deep Dive podcast. We talked about his controversial polls, his real relationship with No Labels and why he thinks that Nikki Haley may still have a big role to play in this year’s election.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

You have been very, very bullish on the demand for a third party out there, and a lot of people disagree with you on this one. But make the case: What have you learned in your polling recently about whether the electorate is screaming out for a third-party option?

I had a question that I did maybe a year and a half ago: If it’s Biden vs. Trump, would you consider a moderate independent? Now, I know that question. I did John Anderson’s polling [in 1980], if you remember him. I did Ross Perot’s polling — his benchmark [ahead of 1992] — his very first poll. There was maybe 30, 35 percent who were really interested and could go for a third party. He got up to 39 percent in June [1992], right before he pulled out.

But I look at the conditions today, and about 60 percent say they would consider a moderate independent. Two-thirds are unhappy with the economy, half say their life is getting worse, 70 percent say they don’t like the choice that they have. So is there an opportunity? Certainly there’s an opportunity, whether or not the right person comes up and does it.

But third parties, when they come along, attract attention because they are addressing an issue that the two major parties are ignoring. Then, usually, the two parties kind of realize they’ve ignored something and co-opt that issue, and the third party dies. What is the issue that a third party could actually run on that Trump and Biden aren’t addressing?

The very issue of national unity and solving problems like immigration. Comprehensive immigration reform has been favored by 65 or 70 percent of the population for the last 10 years.

Most issues have solutions that, in the current polarized environment, aren’t getting implemented. The opening here would be for a third party to come in and say: “Look, we’re going to actually fix the problems because we’re going to be divorced from the partisanship that the Republicans and Democrats have just dug themselves into.” Never forget that Abraham Lincoln was, in effect, a third-party [candidate], one with 39 percent [of the vote in 1860].

There’s an entity called No Labels that seems to want to be the vessel for this third-party movement. And all of their presentations cite your surveys. So tell us a little bit about No Labels, and your involvement or non-involvement in that.

Well, let’s just be very clear: My wife, Nancy Jacobson, founded No Labels when I was busy with the Hillary campaign. She runs it and makes the decisions. I have no formal or informal role other than that I occasionally look at some polling and I support my wife.

And she tries to make clear that she’s just getting ballot access [for a potential ticket] — she’s just creating an opportunity if somebody were to come along and be the right person. I can assure you: She’s not someone who ever would even consider voting for Trump. Somehow, the Democrats don’t fully understand that fact. I have a very full-time job at the moment running a company that’s got 12,000 people. People don’t quite realize that I left all this behind having spent about 30 years in the trenches.

I’ve got to push you on this a little bit. Larry Hogan, in the fall, was at this event at the Hay-Adams hotel in Washington. He said, “Mark and Nancy came to talk to me about their big third-party idea.” So I feel like you’ve got to take a little bit of responsibility, if you have some of these candidates running out there, using your name.

I’m surprised. I maybe spoke to him, in my entire life,........

© Politico