On March Jobs, and No Go for No Labels

No Labels has stood down its Unity Ticket initiative for the 2024 presidential election because it has been unable to recruit high-quality candidates. But polling continues to show that majorities don’t think either Biden or Trump should run, so the field is open for a disruptive independent candidate. With No Labels off the board, Kennedy can be that disruptor. Nationally he is polling in the neighborhood of the vote-share Perot got in 1992, which was enough to tip the election from Bush to Clinton. Kennedy draws more from Biden nationally. But in the key battleground states he draws equally. Because elections are decided entirely in those seven states, and by a tiny handful of voters in those states, even a modest Kennedy draw could trigger a “contingent election” that would have to be decided by the House. The March jobs report was unambiguous, with the payroll survey and the household survey agreeing for a change, and almost no revisions. The productivity-led boom is very much intact.