Why A Third-Party Candidate Might Help Trump — And Spoil The Election For Biden

PretentiousDouche@lemmy.sdf.org to politics @lemmy.world – 43 points –
Why A Third-Party Candidate Might Help Trump — And Spoil The Election For Biden
fivethirtyeight.com

...Initial evidence suggests that, in a rematch between Biden and Trump, a No Labels and/or West campaign could pull marginal support from Biden and subtly shift the election toward Trump. Whether this would actually make for a potential spoiler, though, is a different question: History — and common sense — suggest that these possible third-party candidates would be most likely to affect the outcome if the overall race were close. But in our deeply divided political era, close elections have been the norm, which makes a spoiler candidacy a live possibility...

39

You are viewing a single comment

This is common in First Past the Post voting structures. CGP Gray does a great video to explain this.

Isn't it interesting that this part never factors into the discussion? Its always brought up that third party candidates spoil votes for the more popular candidate, but only so far as "and that's why you need to vote BLUE"

The Democratic establishment doesn't want to fix this issue. They want to be able to coerce people into voting for them out of fear of the ever more openly fascist GOP.

I agree that this is why major parties oppose ranked choice. The problem is that until we find a way to get ranked choice, they are right.

1 more...
1 more...