As the 2016 race for president heats up, many people are wondering if they’ll be stuck choosing between the two main presumptive nominees: Donald Trump (R) or Hillary Clinton (D). “I think the candidates, especially Donald Trump, are taking it as a joke,” said NSLC student Allie Brown. Other adults do not hold favorable opinions of those candidates either; according to a poll conducted by the Washington Post, 55 percent of adults have an unfavorable view of Clinton, whereas 70 percent of adults have an unfavorable view of Trump. Some third party candidates are trying to capitalize on this opportunity, hoping to put themselves in a more favorable light than Clinton or Trump.
One of the third party candidates gaining traction is Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico. Johnson is the presidential candidate for the Libertarian election. Johnson ran in 2012, taking over 1 million votes, good for third place. However, Johnson was far off from the number of votes Barack Obama and Mitt Romney received (65.9 million and 60.9 million respectively). This year, Johnson is trying to have his voice heard by qualifying for the presidential debates in the fall. In order to do so, Johnson needs to have 15 percent of the vote in national polls. In an Investor’s Business Daily poll, Johnson received 11 percent of the vote. CNN recently had an interview with Johnson, highlighting his stances on policies like immigration and gun control: http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/22/politics/gary-johnson-bill-weld-town-hall/
Another candidate rallying for support is Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. In a CNN/ORC poll released June 21, 2016, Stein pulled in 7 percent of the vote among registered voters. Stein is trying to get the support of Bernie Sanders fans. “The difference between Bernie Sanders and myself is he was trying to have a revolutionary campaign inside a counterrevolutionary party,” said Stein, according to CNN.
Third party candidates have made an impact before; in 1992, businessman Ross Perot ran against Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush and Democratic nominee Bill Clinton. Perot lead both Bush and Clinton in national polls before dropping out of the race in July 1992. Perot then reentered the race in Oct. 1992, and participated in the debates with Clinton and Bush. Perot received 19 percent of the popular vote.
Some believe that third party candidates are “spoilers” to the election process. In the 2000 election, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader garnered 97,488 votes in Florida. In a document written by Dartmouth College and UCLA students and presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, the students claim that because of those votes to Nader, Al Gore lost the key state of Florida, giving George W. Bush the majority of electoral college votes (http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/lewis/pdf/greenreform9.pdf). Others say that having third party candidates gives people more of a choice. “I think we need more representation for our opinions,” said NSLC student Miles Misurasa.
The following is the results among third party candidates in the 2012 presidential election (information provided by the FEC): http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2012/2012pres.pdf
However, when Obama and Romney are added in, the results are very different:
According to this data, third party candidates will need more support than they received in 2012 if they want to be seen as serious, viable candidates.