How can third parties impact the 2024 presidential election?

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ALESSIA COLUCCIO: Unlike in most United States presidential elections, third-party or independent candidates in 2024 have the potential to impact its result, since victory will come down to margins. 

Both President Biden, the Democratic nominee, and former President Trump, the Republican nominee, are historically unpopular candidates. Their disapproval ratings, according to a Gallup poll from December 2023, surpass their approval ratings, reaching over 50%. These highly unpopular candidates have laid the groundwork for Americans to consider a third option–one that can potentially shift the election’s outcome, especially if they receive sufficient support in critical swing states. 

Unlike other democratic countries, the U.S. has never had a third-party candidate come close to winning a presidential election. Professor Eric Langenbacher, a teaching professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University, believes this is a consequence of the United State's electoral system–a single-member plurality model in which the simple majority winner in every state receives all the electoral college seats. A de facto two-party system results in smaller parties, even if they accumulate significant support across several states, cannot win the electoral college within any single one. 

“Whether that’s 34% of the vote, evenly split among three candidates, whether that’s 40% of the vote or 60% of the vote, the winner is getting 100% of the electoral college seats. This is the problem,” said Langenbacher. “Evidence shows that single-member plurality does not allow for third parties to exist.”

While a third party or independent candidate has never won a presidential election, they have caused notable turnovers, resulting in the loss of the more popular candidate. This occurred in the 1992 race between Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and independent candidate, Ross Perot. The result of the election was 43% of the popular vote for Clinton, 37% for Bush, and 19% for Perot. He did this by attracting socially conservative and fiscally conservative but socially moderate voters. Even though Perot did not win a single electoral college seat, support for him was enough to cost Bush his re-election. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent candidate in the 2024 presidential election also holds 16% of the popular vote according to a recent Ipsos poll. The threat Kennedy poses is complex because he pulls from both Biden's and Trump's voter bases due to his historically Democratic last name and his anti-vaccination rhetoric. However, PBS NewsHour White House Correspondent and CNN political analyst, Laura Barron-Lopez, says that, currently, both the Republican and Democratic parties believe Kennedy poses a bigger threat to Biden.

“One of RFK Jr.’s biggest donors is a M.A.G.A donor, a Trump donor. So they think, Republicans think, he can hurt Biden more than he can hurt Trump,” said Barron-Lopez. “Polls say he pulls from both, but Democrats see him as a much bigger threat to Biden. That’s why you see the Democratic National Committee attacking RFK relentlessly, trying to highlight every extreme comment he has ever said.”

The three major third parties in this election are the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and No Labels, who attempted to field a candidate but ended their presidential bid on Thursday. Unlike the Democratic and Republican parties, third parties and independent candidates are not automatically placed on state ballots for presidential elections. Despite this, they can impact electoral results by overturning an election within swing states they qualify for, altering the electoral college seat earnings of candidates. 

Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader, contributed to the loss of the incumbent Democratic Vice President Al Gore in 2000 by causing him to narrowly lose Florida’s electoral college seats. 

“Nader only got two percent of the vote in Florida, and usually when we think about third party candidates we see them getting more, but even two percent can lead to least preferred results,” said Langenbacher. “It’s a fact that a vast majority of Nader voters in 2000 would have preferred a Gore presidency to a Bush presidency, but because they went with their third option, it swung the election to the least preferred candidate for the majority of voters.” 

Because both Trump and Biden are so widely unpopular, this election will come down to margins. This is when a third party or independent candidate can really impact results, especially in swing states. Voters, who are unhappy with either candidate have three options: they can either not turn out at all, vote for who they perceive to be “the lesser of two evils,” or vote third party.

The 2024 presidential election has serious implications for the future of American democracy. By potentially splitting the Democratic vote, third-party and independent candidates pose a threat to its maintenance, allowing for the re-election of a leader who has publicly violated and denounced the United States Constitution. 

“The threats to democracy are pretty clear. You can highlight any of the things Trump has proposed, but you can also quote Liz Cheney, a conservative through and through,” said Barron-Lopez. “She considers the majority of Biden's policies bad policies. But she has said the country can survive bad policy, it cannot survive the degradation of the constitution and the dismantling of democracy, and that is what this election is about.” 

Alessia Coluccio is a Staff Writer for On the Record from Brooklyn, New York. She is a sophomore in the College studying government with minors in Journalism and Science, Technology, and International Affairs.