The Third-Party Threat to Biden’s Reelection is Real

This article is an excellent overview of the potential impact of third-party campaigns in the presidential election of 2024.

There are always third parties in U.S. presidential elections, and they almost never matter. They usually get 1% to 2% of the vote, win no states, and that’s it.

It is possible that Green Party candidate Jill Stein actually did cost Hillary Clinton the presidential election in 2016 by getting just enough votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan to tip those states to Trump.

The bad news for Biden is that Jill Stein is back. And so is RFK, Jr., Cornel West and possibly Joe Manchin. The 2024 cycle will be a landmark year for third parties.

Jill Stein and Cornel West are competing for the Green Party nomination. It’s not clear who will win, but if Jill Stein gets the nomination, West will have other party lines to run on.

RFK, Jr. tried to run on the Democratic Party line but was driven out of the race by the Democratic National Committee which threatened to unseat any delegates he might win in New Hampshire if he even sets foot in the state (this is consistent with who the Democrats really are – the anti-democratic party). Kennedy has the money, lawyers and smarts to get on the ballot with his own party. It’s not easy (I’ve done it for other candidates), but it can be done.

Next to Kennedy, the most interesting case is Joe Manchin. He’s a Democrat who just announced he’s not running for reelection as U.S. senator from West Virginia. He’s going on a coast-to-coast listening tour, a standard device for someone planning to run for president.

If he runs, he’s likely to go on the No Labels Party line. No Labels has done the hard work already and is on the ballot in almost every state.

RFK, Jr. is consistently getting 15% or more in the polls. Jill Stein is well-known because of her role in 2016. Cornel West will have appeal both to blacks and ideological left-wingers. Manchin will appeal to the middle-of-the-road types who are sick of Trump and Biden.

Together, this Gang of Four could get 25% of the vote. That could easily throw the election to Trump.

It’s fair to say the majority of votes for third-party candidates will come from the Democrats. In an election scenario where the margin of victory in a two-way race is about 2%, a 25% showing by third parties will bury the Democrats.

The historical precedents are sobering. In 1992, Bill Clinton only got 43% of the vote, but he won the election over George H. W. Bush who only got 37.5%. The remaining 19% went to Ross Perot. If the Perot vote were split 65% for the Republicans, Bush would have won 49.9% to 49.7% over Clinton. There’s little doubt Perot cost Bush the election.

The other similar case was 1912. Teddy Roosevelt chose not to run in 1908 and the party nominated William Howard Taft who won the election. By 1916, Roosevelt changed his mind and challenged Taft for the nomination. Taft won, so Roosevelt started the Bull Moose Party and ran against Taft and the Democratic nominee, Woodrow Wilson.

In the end, Wilson got 41.8% of the vote, Roosevelt got 27.4%, Taft got 23.2%, and Eugene Debs got 6%. If you combined the Roosevelt and Taft votes, either candidate would have beaten Wilson, 50.6% to 41.8%. Thanks to the Republican split, we got Wilson who gave us the federal income tax, the Federal Reserve, and World War I.

Yes, elections do matter. The 2024 election is set to be a third-party scramble similar to 1992 and 1912. Those elections produced results that probably would not have happened without the large third-party vote. This will happen again, and it does seem to favor Trump.

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