Mark Cuban, the billionaire businessman and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, said Thursday that he will not run for president in 2024 as No Labels pushes for a bipartisan, third-party presidential ticket on next year’s ballot.
“No. My family would disown me,” Cuban wrote in an email to NBC News.
Cuban, who publicly flirted with an independent run for president in 2020, confirmed that he has engaged in past conversations with No Labels, the bipartisan group spending money to secure ballot access for a third-party presidential campaign in all 50 states. But the group’s founder, Nancy Jacobson, told NBC News that deliberations over potential candidates are “not something we spend a lot of time at.”
Cuban wrote: “I like that they are trying a new path. I think the 2 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 in April, when it intends to pick a Democrat and a Republican who could run as a ticket against the two major parties' presidential nominees.
In a statement, former Sen. Joe Lieberman, No Labels' founding chairman, said: “Mark Cuban is a real national leader and innovator who has his hands on the pulse of the American people. I am grateful that he sees the value of our No Labels Movement.”
Two sources familiar with No Labels' conversations said the group had not narrowed the pool of prospective candidate to just people who have 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 towards the middle, which I think would be a positive,” Cuban wrote.
He said he also supports the Center for Competitive Democracy, a group that aids in ballot access for third-party candidates. He also backs efforts to use ranked-choice voting in elections, which proponents say could open up space for candidates from alternatives to the two major parties.
