One of the great Rorschach tests of the current political moment is the question of whether this is a good time — or the worst time ever — for someone to break up the two-party duopoly by launching an independent or third-party bid for the presidency.
If you look at the numbers and the current political climate through the framing of “both parties are unpopular and both likely nominees are unpopular,” then the water has never looked more tempting.
Some 60% of folks in most polls this year have said they’d prefer another matchup than President Joe Biden vs. former President Donald Trump. There’s a clear plurality who express exhaustion at the current political climate.
But I wouldn’t mistake that initial enthusiasm for anything more than hitting a “like” button on social media. There’s never been an easier time to “elevator pitch” the idea of launching a third-party challenge. But the devil’s in the details about said “third” candidate, whether it’s on the issue of abortion, the fairness of the 2016 and 2020 elections, vaccines, the border, Ukraine, Israel and on and on. Once this third-party candidate fills in the blanks, those voters initially interested may have second thoughts, especially if there’s a specific issue that matters to them more than political party. Abortion is likely to be one of those issues.
That brings up the other framing of the third-party question via Rorschach test. If voters believe democracy and abortion rights are on the ballot in 2024 or that the country’s identity and what it means to be an American is the question facing the nation, the last thing they’d want to see is a third-party challenge. Someone could obviously believe all these things and still hope or wish for an alternative, but those voters who are most passionate about either using the election to send a signal about the country’s culture or using it to protect abortion rights and our current form of democracy most likely view the 2024 election as a zero-sum game. Perhaps they don’t love the two generals likely to lead their sides into this political battle but fear of the other side’s winning is just too great a risk to flirt with leaving the party.
The thinking here goes that every vote against your side (whether via third-party candidate or an indie candidate or a write-in) is a vote for the other side to win. This is certainly the argument that supporters of both Biden and Trump are starting to make.
Biden and the Democrats have been quite aggressive at trying to snuff out any third-party challenge, whether from No Labels and its proposed centrist ticket or from progressive activist (and former Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign co-chair) Cornel West — and Biden folks are ecstatic that West and the Green Party split up, making his ballot access harder.
And we saw the first signs of Republican nervousness on the third-party front after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decided to drop his Democratic primary challenge to Biden and instead go independent. The Republican National Committee to many in the Trump information ecosystem went from promoting RFK Jr. to troll Democrats and Biden to suddenly attacking RFK Jr. as a liberal.
One thing about today’s politics — it’s not subtle. And the reason the Trump right has gone negative on RFK Jr. is simple: He’s gotten real traction among folks who also have favorable views of Trump. Most professional operatives see a third-party candidate as nothing more than a spoiler, someone who in a close race simply takes away potential decisive voters from their side.
But one of the great mistakes many political analysts make is forgetting how statistically insignificant historical precedents for presidential races really are. We still have fewer than 60 presidential elections to comb through, so it would be foolhardy to claim some sort of statistical proof that the way it worked then is the way it will work now.
And that brings me to the only path I can foresee for a potential successful third-party candidacy in 2024.
That path involves someone who successfully corners the “enough is enough” crowd. I often joke that I’m in search of someone in our current political class who can channel both Samuel L. Jackson in “Snakes on a Plane” and George Washington. To paraphrase, they’re tired of these (expletive) partisans screwing up this (expletive) country, a 21st century echo of Washington’s farewell address warning that political factions were a potential threat to the government.
This person may not exist, or the person who might fit this bill best just may not have the stomach to put themselves out there in this political environment. But at some point, the public is going to snap and demand this, right? Right?
This is why I remain convinced…
Read More: The search for a winner behind Door No. 3