Biden seems to be benefiting from the lack of 3rd party enthusiasm

(Image credit: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

published 9 September 2020

"Support for third-party presidential candidates, which reached a 20-year high in the last election, has fallen off in every measurable way" this year, David Weigel reports at The Washington Post. So far, at least, that has been a boon to Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Weigel gave some context:

In the last election, the nomination of unpopular Democratic and Republican nominees created openings for third parties and made it easier for Trump to win. In 14 states, neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton cracked 50 percent of the vote. In Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as Democrats painfully remind themselves, the vote for third-party candidates was much bigger than Trump's win margin. Six percent of voters didn't vote for either major-party candidate, the biggest rejection of the system in 20 years. More than 1.2 million Americans wrote in a candidate. [The Washington Post]

President Trump's favorability ratings have increased since 2016, but "Biden is viewed far more favorably than the last Democratic nominee, with no single scandal or flaw defining him as the FBI's probe of her email server defined Clinton," Weigel writes. The Green and Libertarian parties are running little-known activists for president, "plans for a centrist third party imploded" again, and the left has put its dreams of "a left-wing, populist, anti-corporate third party" on hold until at least 2021.

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The lack of third-party fervor is a big reason 2020 looks very different than 2016, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman agrees:

Third-party candidates may still decide local and congressional races, Ross Ramsey notes at The Texas Tribune. In Texas, for example, "the all-Republican [Supreme] Court rejected a Republican effort to erase 44 Libertarian candidates from the ballot." (Green Party candidates were knocked off because the Democrats filed their challenges in time.) The idea that Green spoilers help Republicans and Libertarians help Democrats is mostly "political folklore," Ramsey writes, but "every year sees some close races. Candidates do everything they can to get an edge in those close races. And sometimes, the most effective way to do that is to have a third-party candidate in the race."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.