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‘Playing Spoiler’: Multiple Third-Party Candidates Could Spell Bad News For Biden In 2024

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  • Multiple third-party candidates could sway the 2024 presidential election in key battleground states if there’s a rematch between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, political observers and polling analysts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • Green Party candidate Cornel West, a Libertarian Party candidate, a No Labels candidate and likely Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could all be on the ballot in 2024, which could siphon off more support from Biden than Trump, polling analysts and political strategists told the DCNF.
  • “I can imagine a world in which we have two, three, four legitimate third parties, and unlike usual, all in they’ll get 1%, 2%, they might get 5% or 6% — and that, without a doubt, is going to be the most important element of this election,” Mike McKenna, GOP consultant and president of MWR Strategies, told the DCNF.

With another close presidential election expected in 2024, third parties are likely to impact the general election in key battleground states if there’s a rematch between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, polling analysts and political observers told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Multiple third-party candidates could be on the ballot in 2024, including a Green Party candidate, a No Labels candidate, a Libertarian Party candidate and likely Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as an independent. Several polling analysts and political strategists believe that the additional third-party candidates will likely siphon off more support from Biden, which could allow Trump to return to the White House in 2024, they told the DCNF.

“If there is a rematch between Biden and Trump, there are going to be a significant number of voters who hold negative views of both candidates, given that both have favorability numbers only around 40% and unfavourability over 50%. Those are conditions ripe for heightened third-party voting,” Kyle Kondik, nonpartisan polling analyst and managing editor for Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told the DCNF. “I wouldn’t expect the third-party vote to be all that large, but the margins in key states are likely to be so small that the third-party candidates could end up playing spoiler.”

Cornel West is running for the Green Party nomination, many are running for the Libertarian Party nomination and centrist organization No Labels is considering running a third-party ticket in 2024, with West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin often mentioned as a potential contender. Kennedy, who is currently seeking the Democratic Party nomination, is expected to switch his party affiliation to run as an independent in Philadelphia on Oct. 9.

Many attribute Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016 to Green Party candidate Jill Stein, arguing if Stein’s votes went to Clinton, Trump wouldn’t have won. Some have signaled a similar phenomenon is likely to play out in 2024, but at a larger scale with the potential for more third-party candidates on the ballot, they told the DCNF.

“Jill Stein did win enough votes to tip Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to President Trump…third parties have a long history of spoiling,” Bruce Mehlman, political analyst and founder of Mehlman Consulting, told the DCNF. “The calculus by most observers appears to be that while Joe Biden has a slightly higher ceiling than Donald Trump, he also has a lower floor than Donald Trump. And the fear among Democrats is that a third party will take more voters from Biden than they will take from Trump.”

Mike McKenna, GOP consultant and president of MWR Strategies, echoed Mehlman’s sentiment, and told the DCNF the “fundamental reason” Clinton lost was due to Stein’s candidacy.

“The election in 2024 looks remarkably similar, with one important exception, and that is 70% of the voters don’t want either of these guys to run,” said McKenna. “I can imagine a world in which we have two, three, four legitimate third parties, and unlike usual, all in they’ll get 1%, 2%, they might get 5% or 6% — and that, without a doubt, is going to be the most important element of this election.”

McKenna added that because Biden’s support is “much softer” than Trump’s, these third-party candidates will likely take more of the president’s votes away, which is key in battleground states that could come down to a few thousand votes.

An Emerson College survey released in early August indicated that Trump and Biden were tied for a head-to-head matchup in the battleground state of Michigan. With West in the mix, Trump would beat Biden by 2 points, followed by the Green Party candidate at 4%, according to the poll.

Since the election will likely be “incredibly close,” a third-party candidate could win enough votes in a swing state to sway the election, said Mehlman. If 2024 isn’t a rematch between Trump and Biden, McKenna and Melhman don’t think third parties will have as much of an effect, as there will be “less of a desire for change” among voters, said Melhman.

A majority of voters in eight battleground states — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — don’t want either Trump or Biden to run for another term, according to a No Labels/HarrisX survey. The poll suggested that 63% of voters would “consider voting for a moderate or independent candidate” if there’s a rematch between Trump and Biden.

The RealClearPolitics (RCP) average for a 2024 national Republican and Democratic primary, based on the most recent polling, indicates Trump and Biden are leading their respective fields by 42 points and 50 points, respectively. Trump is currently winning against Biden by 1.3 points in a general election matchup, according to the RCP average.

The Green Party has ballot access in 17 states and Washington, D.C., according to its website. No Labels has secured ballot access in ten states — Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, South Dakota, Nevada and Florida — and is planning to get to 28 states by the end of the year.

John McLaughlin, CEO and partner of McLaughlin & Associates, a polling firm that works closely with the Trump campaign, told the DCNF that Democrats are concerned that voting for a third-party candidate is “a vote for Trump.”

“They know Trump’s base is like very, very solid — much more so than Biden’s. And most of the votes that go for these independents are pulled from Joe Biden, not from Donald Trump, and Trump’s already ahead,” said McLaughlin, referring to a survey he shared with the DCNF that has Trump leading Biden by 4 points.

In a three-way general election matchup between Trump, Biden and West, the former president secured 43% of the vote, followed by Biden at 38% and West at 6%, according to the poll conducted between Sept. 22 and Sept. 26. In a four-way race with Manchin as the No Labels’ candidate, Trump led with 40%, and Biden garnered 36%, Manchin received 6% and West had 4%.

“Polling generally suggests that Biden is a little bit more hurt than third parties than Trump, but that’s not automatically how it would have to end up,” said Kondik.

Jon McHenry, a GOP polling analyst and vice president at North Star Opinion Research, isn’t convinced third parties will advantage one party over the other in 2024, he told the DCNF.

“I could see, depending on who No Labels nominates, that being sort of a safety valve for some, probably not Republicans, but at least sort of conservative-leaning independents, who just can’t pull the trigger for Biden again, but they’re also like, ‘you know what, I sort of think Trump committed treason, and, you know, maybe by that point he’s found guilty on a felony charge or five,’” said McHenry. “So I think it could affect, assuming Trump is the nominee, Trump as much as it affects Biden.”

Trump, Biden, West, Kennedy, Manchin, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party and No Labels did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

AUTHOR

MARY LOU MASTERS

Contributor.

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No Labels Leaders Descend on Capitol Hill to Tout National Strategic Agenda

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WASHINGTON, PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — No Labels leaders participated in a series of signature events on and around Capitol Hill, on Wednesday, to make the case for its National Strategic Agenda as a transformational idea that can help unite the country, shape the 2016 electoral debate and provide a proven framework for problem solving in the first 100 days of the next administration.

A day that began with former Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), former Governor Jon Huntsman (R-UT) and other No Labels leaders testifying before the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee continued with a series of media briefings and training events for No Labels activists from across the country.

“We always hear political leaders talk about their desire to unite the country, but lately, there has been no plan for how to actually do it. The National Strategic Agenda is the how,” said No Labels National Co-Chairman Jon Huntsman. “As today’s events make clear, legions of people inside and outside Washington are recognizing that this simple and powerful concept can break the gridlock that has afflicted our government for far too long.”

“The National Strategic Agenda is based on a simple premise: To solve a problem – any problem – you need to set goals, get people to buy into those goals and put a process or plan in place to achieve them,” added No Labels National Co-Chairman Joe Lieberman. “This is the way any well-oiled organization runs. It’s the only way anything big in Washington has ever gotten done. And it is why the National Strategic Agenda is an idea whose time has come.”

At the Senate hearing, Lieberman, along with Huntsman, Co-Chair of the Loews Corporation Andrew Tisch and Merchants Metals CEO Andrea Hogan explained the urgency for a new National Strategic Agenda and painted an ambitious vision for how it could be implemented. This would include the next president, soon after inauguration, inviting leaders of both parties to Camp David to commence work on at least one of the four goals in No Labels’ National Strategic Agenda. These goals, which were chosen with input from the American people in a series of national polls No Labels conducted in 2014, are:

  • Create 25 million new jobs over the next 10 years;
  • Secure Medicare and Social Security for another 75 years;
  • Balance the federal budget by 2030; and
  • Make American energy secure by 2024.

A No Labels-backed resolution calling for a National Strategic Agenda based on these four goals (S. Res. 199) was introduced in the U.S. Senate on June 11th by Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL) and John Thune (R-SD). A companion resolution (H. Res.207) has been introduced in the House by U.S. Representatives Tom Reed (R-NY) and Ami Bera (D-CA), along with more than 50 co-sponsors from both parties.

Tisch and Hogan compared their experience in the private sector to the challenges facing the American government.

Said Tisch: “In business, as in government, the road to success is not so different. The first step is to identify a problem or an opportunity. The second step is to figure out how to solve that problem or seize that opportunity. Then, a goal is set that identifies the metrics and the timeline for success. And you hold your team accountable for meeting that goal. That’s how we succeed in our business. That’s how our government has succeeded in the past, whether it was winning a World War or sending a man to the moon.”

Hogan said she knew of “no business that can succeed long-term without a clear vision of what success looks like – a shared, goal-driven agenda of strategic imperatives – and a defined set of tactics aimed at achieving the organization’s goals.” She went on to marvel at the fact that in “the largest ‘enterprise’ in the world, the United States of America – all $17 trillion of it in economic output terms – operates precisely this way today.”

“We can’t allow this to be the case anymore,” Hogan concluded.

After the hearing, more than 100 No Labels citizen activists gathered for a No Labels luncheon that included media training while the No Labels’ leadership team hosted about 50 national political reporters at a luncheon nearby.

No Labels is running what it calls a “presidential campaign without a candidate” in New Hampshire and will convene the first-ever Problem Solver Convention in Manchester on October 12th, which is designed to attract independent voters and a number of leading presidential candidates from both parties.

“The next president will be a problem solver because the people will demand it,” said No Labels Executive Director Margaret Kimbrell. “Thanks to our extensive ground operation in New Hampshire, every presidential candidate will have to have a position on the National Strategic Agenda. And we’re confident that candidates will see that this idea is good for them and most important of all, good for our country.”

As further evidence that No Labels and the National Strategic Agenda is gaining currency among prominent political leaders in Washington and beyond, co-chairs Huntsman and Lieberman, as along with vice-chairs Al Cardenas and Mack McLarty, welcomed former U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), former U.S. House Majority Leader Representative Dick Gephardt (D-MO), former Governor John Engler (R-MI), former U.S. Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN), former U.S. Representative Tom Davis (R-VA), former U.S. Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) and Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Dennis Blair to the No Labels Advisory Board.

ABOUT NO LABELS

No Labels is a national movement of Democrats, Republicans and Independents dedicated to a new politics of problem solving. With a network of hundreds of thousands of citizens and local leaders across America and more than 70 allies in the U.S. Congress, No Labels has proposed reform ideas that have been introduced with support across the aisle, passed by Congress, and signed into law, including No Budget, No Pay. Find out more at www.nolabels.org.