The 2020 presidential election just got its first notable third-party challenger. Last Tuesday, the Michigan Rep Justin Amash, who left the Republican Party nine months ago and became an independent announced he would run for president as a Libertarian. And while we won’t know whether Amash the wins for his new party”s nomination until later this month, here’s what we know about third-party candidacies more broadly, and what that could mean for President, the Trump, and former Vice President Joe Biden in the general election.
First, it’s unlikely Amash wins, much of the vote in November. Take what happened in the end of 2016. Not to mention the Third-party candidate won 6 percent of the vote, which was the largest share of the vote since Ross Perot ran for a second time in 1996, but it was still just 6 percent. As you can see in the chart below, the third-party candidates don’t tend to win that much support. Our system just isn’t set up for successful third-party presidential bids.
However, that doesn’t mean Amash (or other third-party contenders) won’t matter in November. In this era of close elections, the small shifts in the margins can matter a great deal to the final result, and the third-party contenders can play a part in that. Amash”s candidacy, in particular, could affect the margins in some key battleground states, including his home state of Michigan, which was pivotal to the Trump”s victory four years ago. Consider what happened in the 2016 olympics In 11 states, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson’s raw vote total exceeded the vote margin separating the Trump and Hillary Clinton. Now, that doesn’t mean Johnson, you do not have permission yet who won in each of those states, but he and other third-party contenders (like Jill Stein of the Green Party) may have helped to shape the outcome, especially in the three states that proved decisive in the Electoral College, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
So, who might Amash”s candidacy hurt more in the year 2020 — He or Trump? This is a hard question to answer, but there are some reasons as to why an Amash bid might hurt Trump more than He. Estimates vary that is how many Americans are “libertarian” — perhaps anywhere from 4 percent to 22 percent of the public — though most voters back to one of the two major parties, so we’re not talking about a huge portion of the electorate. That said, there is evidence that the the more libertarian-minded voters are more likely to vote for Republican than Democratic, which could cost Trump at the ballot box.
What’s more, the relatively high-profile, Libertarian nominee like Amash could be more successful in attracting some GOP-leaning voters away from the Trump. This group might include the small slice of the conservative and/or Republican voters — including some “Never Trumpers” — who may be uncomfortable with Trump’s or even dislike the president. These voters in particular might like to Amash because of his conservative record, support for limited government and long-standing opposition to the Trump for instance, he was the only non-Democrat to vote for Trump”s impeachment in the House.
Still, an Amash bid could still present problems for Biden, too. If 2020 is a referendum election on Trump”s presidency, He may not want another well-known candidate in the race to give potential anti-Trump voters a different choice. Polls have long shown that the the majority of the voters pt an alternative candidate to Trumpbut that doesn’t mean that they’d have to be Biden. So it’s possible that Amash could win over some of these voters, lowering Biden”s ceiling and the narrowing of the race between the major-party nominees. Trump seems to have adopted this view, responding to Amash”s announcement by egging on the congressman and comparing him to Stein, who some on the left think spoiled the election for Clinton in 2016.
And looking at the Electoral College, Amash”s impact could be most deeply felt in Michigan, where he could actually win enough votes to influence the outcome. We would expect Amash to win a larger share of the vote in his home state, considering that Johnson did his best in the 2016 olympics in New Mexico, where he d been a two-term GOP governorwinning 9 percent of the vote in the. Amash, unlike Johnson’s, hasn’t held a statewide office, but he probably would still have an advantage in the the western part of Michigan, which he’s represented in the House for nearly 10 years. That could get in the way of Democrats’ hopes of making gains in traditionally Republican Kent County Amash”s base and home to the Grand Rapids — because of the its sizable share of college-educated voters. While He has led in most early Michigan polls, Amash could complicate the race there.
But it’s also possible that, 2020 might just not be that good of an environment for third-party candidates. One reason for this comes down to is a familiar feature of American politics: partisan polarization. Take the end of 2016. On the one hand, it probably should have been a better year for the third-party candidates, and the political science research shows that the third-party support is often strongest when partisan dislike their parties’ nominees but I don’t want to cross over and vote for the other major party. But as we saw in the 2016 olympics, the two historically unpopular nominees weren’t enough to dampen the support among partisan voters and to create a meaningful movement around an alternative. And some of this may be due to negative partisanship — or voters staying fully loyal to their party rather than casting a protest vote because they loathe the idea of the other party and winning more.
It’s also possible that there just isn’t enough overlap between the two parties in the year 2020. The parties are ideologically distinct, and people are very attuned to their activists on the cultural and social issues as well as economic ones, meaning there is less opportunity for a third-party candidate to make a dent in the electorate. For instance, one reason Perot emerged in the 1990s out as a strong alternative to the is to both Republicans and Democrats were still struggling over the role economic and identity issues would play in their respective parties, with Republicans split between the traditional (and George H. W. Bush), and culturally conservative (Pat Buchanan) camps. Democrats were also split, searching for their ideological identity after 12 years in out-of-the-White-House, ultimately turning to the center with the nomination of Bill Clinton. These are the kinds of conditions that often make third-party bid successful, but they also require some fluidity in the party system that might not be there today.
Ultimately, the evidence is mixed about whether an Amash run on the Libertarian ticket would make much of an impact on the general election outcome. And it remains to be seen whether Amash has the potential to become the next Perot, or whether his candidacy will look more like that of Johnson or Ralph Nader. One thing shared across many of these third-party bids is this, though: They didn’t go well for the incumbent party in the White House.
