The third parties
Welcome back to Bournbrook’s regular series on the state of the US presidential race, your impartial guide to the campaign and what you can expect as election date draws near.
Ever since the founding of the Republican Party in 1854, the United States has, arguably, maintained the most rigid two-party system anywhere in the developed world. Every presidential election since 1852 has been won by either a Democrat or a Republican. The last, and only, US president to be elected as an independent was George Washington himself (and he ran unopposed).
This political duopoly is just as strong on the congressional level. Since the Second World War, a total of only thirteen independent and third-party candidates have been elected to the House of Representatives. The last time one was successful was in 2004. Independents have had more luck in Senate races. Two currently serve in the upper house, Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Otherwise, the duopoly maintains its grip.
Of course, that has not stopped some from trying. With every presidential election comes a new host of independent and third-party candidates. Occasionally, they even do quite well. In this edition of US election watch, I will take you through the motley of presidential hopefuls seeking to challenge America’s political duopoly, and what impact they might have upon whether Donald Trump wins re-election. But first…
The state of the race
Until quite recently, the relationship between national and state polls was one where Joe Biden maintained a strong lead overall but President Trump remained more competitive in individual battlegrounds. This was hardly surprising, given that Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and Democrats tend to pile up votes in large states (notably California and New York) which are hardly competitive on the presidential level.
However, over the past few weeks, this trend has seemingly begun to reverse. As of this morning, Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by 6.7% in the FiveThirtyEight national polling average. This is about one point lower than his lead last week and his lowest overall since early June. And yet, Biden’s odds of victory have barely deteriorated, if at all. Recent state polls have made for much better news for the Democratic nominee.
Statistically speaking, week by week changes tend to be fairly insignificant. Therefore, in order to better appreciate the wider trends, let’s compare how the polls have moved since just before the party conventions, just over a month ago. On the eve of the Democratic convention, Biden led Trump by 8.4% nationally, decreasing by just under 2% since.
However, across the thirteen ‘battleground’ states I identified last week, Biden’s lead has fallen only by an average of 0.4%. In four of them, Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and Texas, the Democrat has actually improved his standing. The good news for Trump is that his most significant gains have come in Florida, a must-win state for the GOP, where Biden’s lead is now 3.2% lower than it was pre-convention.
So, the overall picture this week is of Trump making modest gains nationally and statistically meaningless gains in most battleground states. There are two explanations for this. First, it is possible that GOP messaging at their convention has been effective at galvanising support in firmly Republican states, but less effective at convincing swing voters in places that actually matter.
Second, the polls could simply be wrong. It is doubtful, for instance, that Biden’s national lead is the same as in Wisconsin and two points lower than in Minnesota, both states which are generally expected to vote more Republican than the country as a whole. Maybe Biden has closed (or at least tightened) the electoral college/popular vote gap which has haunted Democrats since 2016. For now, there’s no way to really tell.
Finally, as this article was ready to be sent off early this morning, news broke that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, supreme court justice and liberal icon, died of cancer at the age of 87. The event sent shockwaves through Democratic circles. Even if Joe Biden wins in November, should Donald Trump and the Republican Senate majority confirm a replacement before January 20th (inauguration day), they could ensure a conservative majority on the court for a generation.
In 2016, following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to let President Obama appoint a successor. McConnell, in a break from convention, argued that the process had to wait until a new president was in office. Safe to say, it is already clear that he does not intend to follow his own precedent. Ginsburg’s death will likely energise voters on both sides of the divide. The stakes could now hardly be any higher, especially when it comes to Senate races.
The third parties
Before we proceed, let me make one thing abundantly clear. The odds of any third party or independent candidate winning the presidency this year are about as close to zero as you can get. The vast majority of them are only on the ballot in a handful of states, totalling far fewer than 270 electoral votes. More pertinently, Joe Biden and Donald Trump currently make up about 94% of national voting intention (and the rest are mostly voters undecided between the main two). If there was any sign of a serious challenge to the duopoly, we would almost certainly know about it.
It wasn’t always like this. In 1996, Reform Party candidate Ross Perot won a sizable 8.4% of the national vote. In 1992, he got 18.9%, arguably helping tilt the electoral college against incumbent George H. W. Bush and towards Bill Clinton. Going further back, pro-segregationist candidate George Wallace won 13.5% of the vote, and five states, in 1968. All the way back in 1912, former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a third-party candidate, beat incumbent Republican William Taft into third place, securing 27.4% of the vote and six states (as a result, Democrat Woodrow Wilson won an electoral college landslide).
Even though the White House has been occupied by either a Democrat or a Republican for over 150 years, other candidates have sometimes delivered a major ‘spoiler effect’. Indeed, in the aftermath of the 2016 election, many observers pointed out that Donald Trump’s margins over Hillary Clinton in the critical battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were smaller than the share of the vote won by Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. In 2000, George W. Bush beat Al Gore to the White House by just over 500 votes in Florida. Meanwhile, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader got about 97,000 votes in the Sunshine State.
The spoiler effect argument should be a familiar one to our UK readers. Due to the first past the post electoral system, every general election is filled with cries of ‘Don’t vote X here, you’ll let Y in!’ Similarly, almost all US states allocate their electoral college votes through a winner-takes-all model (as noted in last week’s piece, Maine and Nebraska allocate some of theirs on the basis of who wins in individual congressional districts).
However, be it America or Britain, claims that X only won because Y took votes from Z are often hard to prove. To that effect, we don’t actually know whether Y voters would have supported Z if their person wasn’t on the ballot. Maybe some of them would have voted for X instead, or simply stayed at home. We must not forget that voters are individuals, not blocks to be moved around at will.
While Jill Stein voters could have put Hillary Clinton over the top in the three states where Trump ultimately won the 2016 election, this argument only works if the overwhelming majority of Stein voters would have both turned out and supported Clinton. That being said, Ralph Nader’s absence in 2000 would have very likely handed the presidency to Al Gore, given the sheer disparity between the latter’s margin and the former’s vote share in Florida.
Sidenote: Why do candidates with no chance of winning run for president? There are a few reasons. For some, it is an opportunity to generate publicity for a particular cause or for their party. While the Greens have no shot at the presidency, they are occasionally competitive in local races. Others will tell themselves that it’s their democratic duty to provide more choice to voters, and ‘hey, maybe the impossible could happen’. And for many more, it might just be a massive ego trip. After all, who doesn’t want to be introduced as ‘Former Presidential Candidate’ at any after dinner speech they give. Those words would certainty look good on any Twitter bio…
Looking ahead to November, here are all of the third-party/independent presidential candidates currently on the ballot in at least one state, ordered by the number of electoral votes they can theoretically win.
Jo Jorgensen (Libertarian Party), Howie Hawkins (Green Party), Gloria La Rica (Party for Socialism and Liberation), Rocky De La Fuente (Alliance and Reform parties), Don Blankenship (Constitution Party), Brock Pierce (Independent), Kanye West (Birthday Party), Brian T. Carroll (American Solidarity Party), Alyson Kennedy (Socialist Workers Party), Bill Hammons (Unity Party), Phil Collins (Prohibition Party), Dario Hunter (Progressive Party), Jade Simmons (Independent), Jerome Segal (Bread and Roses Party), Blake Huber (Approval Voting Party), Mark Charles (Independent), JR Myers (Life and Liberty Party) and Joseph Kishore (Socialist Equality Party).
That’s a mouthful, let’s break it down a bit. Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian Party nominee, is easily the most serious candidate among all of the above (granted, that isn’t saying much). The Libertarian ticket is the only one of the third parties to be on the ballot in all fifty states and Washington D.C. Jorgensen is also among the only two third party candidates to regularly register at all in the opinion polls. The other is Howie Hawkins, the Green Party nominee, who tends to poll anywhere between zero and one per cent whenever a pollster bothers to include him. Together, the Libertarian and Green parties are the most established third party offerings in contemporary America.
All of the other candidates are on the ballot in states worth less than a combined 270 electoral votes. Most voters haven’t heard of them and their impact on the race is microscopic, with maybe one exemption. Kanye West, the billionaire rapper, announced his candidacy for president via Twitter on July 4th. Subsequently, some have suggested that West’s bid was a disturbing side effect of his bipolar disorder. Others claimed that it was all a giant publicity stunt for an upcoming album.
Whatever the case, West maintains that he is serious. His campaign has successfully got on the ballot in twelve states, including Iowa and Minnesota, and is engaged in ‘write-in’ efforts in five more. The Democrats, meanwhile, claim that West is a spoiler candidate aiming to syphon away votes from Biden, something which the rapper doesn’t exactly deny.
Indeed, West has been cautious not to criticise the president and has, reportedly, held regular discussions with Jared Kushner, the senior White house advisor and Trump’s son in law. In some states, West’s efforts to get on the ballot have been aided by Republican operatives, including in Wisconsin, where he was ultimately disqualified after missing the deadline by fourteen seconds, not to mention using bogus signatures.
Clearly, both Democrats and Republicans believe that West has the potential to hurt Biden in a number of key states. There are a few problems with that, though. The case for West as an effective spoiler rests on the implication that black Democrats will vote for him because he is black, which is a suggestion entirely without evidence and, how should I put this, somewhat morally questionable. And if West’s race is an important factor, who’s to say that he will attract Democrats, as opposed to the few black voters who backed Trump in 2016 (or, for that matter, white Republicans who are uncomfortable with either Trump or Biden)?
Despite the wide range of candidates, some better known than most, the evidence clearly points to this being among the worst elections for third parties and independents in recent memory. Biden and Trump’s combined support is, at this point in time, substantially greater than the two party vote in 2016. Unlike last time, both the Democrat and Republican nominees are very well known, while the election will likely prove to be a referendum on the incumbent. Polarisation is at an all time high and, as far as both sides are concerned, the stakes are substantially greater than they were four years ago. Naturally, the potential for a spoiler is always there, however, both parties probably have better things to be concerned about.
