Juggling the Third Party Votes

What if all the Green voters had chosen Hillary instead?  What if the Never Trumpers hadn't supported the spoiler candidacy of Evan McMullin?  What would that look like?

Let's start with the Greens.  If all the Green votes had gone to Hillary, she would have won both Michigan and Wisconsin, getting her an additional 26 electoral votes.  However, that still leaves her short of 270 needed for the win.  In that case, a recount would surely have been called in the closet other state; Bush-Gore redux!

On the other hand, if all the Evan McMullin votes had gone to Trump, he would have picked up Minnesota and increased his electoral victory to 316 to 222.

 

Combining the two scenarios, it is mostly a wash though Hillary comes out better with 248 electoral votes to Trump's 290.  Of course, Jill Stein received 1.36 million votes while Evan McMullin only garnered 545K.

 

The Libertarian Party took votes from each candidate and it is hard to decide where they might have gone.  If they had gone to Hillary, she would have had a smashing victory, giving her Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and the 2nd District of Nebraska.  In that scenario, she has 319 electoral votes to Trump's 219.  However, if they went to Trump, he would have picked up Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, and Minnesota for a total of 36 more electoral votes, providing an electoral win of 342 to 196.

 

It is a certainty that both parties are looking at these scenarios to see if they can absorb these voters.  As the Republicans will have the benefit of incumbency, the Democrats should vigorously seek to reach these voters.

Third Parties

Both the Libertarians and the Greens had a good year thanks to the unlikeable candidates presented by the two major parties.  The Libertarians (I am a registered Libertarian) had their best showing ever.  Established in 1971, it saw its best showing ever by far this year.  It broke a million voters in 2012 but received more than 4 million this year, attracting 3.3% of the voters.  The Greens had their best showing since 2000 when Ralph Nader sank Al Gore.  Jill Stein received 1.25 million votes, less than half of what Nader pulled in 2000 but vastly better than it has done in the intervening years.  One wonders how the party would have done if Bernie had accepted Dr. Stein's offer to lead the ticket.

 

Despite what seemed like an ideal year for third parties, this was only a slightly more active year for them.  Ross Perot's 1992 run was the largest third party run in the last 50 years.  Though 18.9% of the voters supported him, he acquired not a single electoral vote.  George Wallace's American Party, which championed segregation, received 13.5% of all votes cast and 46 electoral votes!  Perot's 1996 run for the newly-formed Reform Party was a shade of his 1992 run but still attracted 8.4% of the voters.  John Anderson's 1980 run was favored by 6.6% of the voters.  Thus, 2016 comes in 5th place for Third Party voting when looking at elections in my lifetime.

 

 

Knowing the Republicans penchant for betraying their voters, it is possible the Libertarian Party will continue this growth spurt come 2020.

 

 

Given how the Democrats have demonstrated that they will rig the primaries for their chosen candidate, the Greens might see improved performance as well.

 

Some say that a third party vote is a wasted vote.  After all, one of the two main parties is going to win.  Yes, I'm sure the Whigs thought the Republican upstarts would never amount to anything.  The important thing to note is that the two main parties will pay more attention to the concerns of third parties as they lose votes to them.  If all the Green voters had gone for Hillary in Wisconsin, she would have taken the state.  The next Democrat will make note of that and the Green agenda may find its way into the Democratic platform.  On the other side, if Trump had taken half of the Libertarians in Minnesota, he could have won the state with a comfortable margin.

 

Third party voters lose every election but influence parties to address their issues and perhaps acquire their votes next time.  It is often said that independent voters decide the race and who is more independent than a third party voter?

Vast Rightwing Conspiracy Expands?

Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee for president, just made the case against Hillary Clinton.  From discussing the now exposed pay-to-play emails that Hillary had deleted from her private server (because it didn't apply to her job as Secretary of State) and the extremely careless handling of top secret information on that same server, the Green Party holds that investigation is fully justified.  Like many on the right, she observed that FBI Director Comey laid out a compelling indictment in his statement and later in his testimony before Congress to only then say there was no reason to indict.  Huh?  All this from a woman who volunteered to step aside and allow the self-identified socialist Bernie Sanders to take the reins of the Green Party; he declined and bought a third home for $600,000; some comrades are more equal.  From the Green Party point of view, Hillary is a right winger.  Yes, it appears that the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy that Hillary uncovered nearly 20 years ago has expanded to the Vast Right to Far Left Wing Conspiracy that is now after her.

 

For years I have been told that I need to listen to both sides on an issue, Right and Left, because the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  Interesting.  The right says that Hillary committed crimes and the left says Hillary committed crimes.  Somewhere in between those two viewpoints is the truth.