One of the biggest threats to Joe Biden's re-election is a viable third-party

candidate. In fact, Democratic strategist Doug Sosnick has gone so far as to state

that Trump can't win without a third-party candidate dividing the anti-Trump vote.

It wouldn't take much for a third party to have a big impact.

In 2020, the election was decided by fewer than 40,000 votes in three swing

states.

But in 2024, third party fever seems to be on the rise. Already Cornell West, R.F.K. 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 long-time role as the top pollster and strategist for Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Penn's wife, Nancy Jacobson, runs no labels,

and Penn provides the data that she uses to support her project.

Penn reports that 64% 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 the

former president. Not surprisingly, Mark and Nancy'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're going to ask him. I'm Ryan Liza and this is

Playbook Deep Dive. Mark Penn ascended through politics as a close ally of the Clinton family.

He held senior roles for Bill's 1996 re-election,

as well as Hillary's 2008 campaign, and then had an epic falling out.

Now he runs a large marketing and communications firm called Stagwell

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