This week No Labels indicated that they would likely back out if Ron DeSantis were the Republican nominee and said they wouldn’t bother if Biden had a big lead over Trump in the polls.

The third-party chatter could get very embarrassing for Biden: a bipartisan group of moderates essentially saying that he and Trump are as bad as one another. Does that mean a third-party candidate could be a real factor this time around? It’s still too early to say. Two unpopular candidates is a necessary but not sufficient ingredient for a meaningful third-party run, but would a candidate picked by No Labels insiders really be the person best placed to break up the duopoly? And American voters have grown all too accustomed to choosing between two flawed candidates.

For now, the third-candidate possibility is best understood as a front in the Democratic shadow war: a way for moderates to flex their muscles and test the strength of Biden’s candidacy. Hence why Biden’s team is getting nervous. And why Trump couldn’t care less.

[That’s probably true of DeSantis too, to an even greater extent. A third-party run wouldn’t dent him at all, as Oliver notes. All it would do is drain votes off from Biden, to the extent it has any impact at all. The problem for Democrats is that none of them are passionate about Biden; their voters are only passionate about Trump. Republican voters and no small number of Democrats are passionate about kicking Biden out of office. Democrats want Trump to produce ennui among their opponents. — Ed]