After the Democratic National Committee ran an ad warning that a vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Donald Trump, I assessed her spoiler potential at New York:
In a presidential contest so close that every one of the seven battleground states could go either way, the major-party campaigns are spending some of their enormous resources trying to ensure that minor-party candidates don’t snag critical votes. This ad from the Democratic National Committee is indicative of these fears:
Not only does this ad convey the simple message that “a vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Donald Trump,” but it includes the reminder that according to the Democratic narrative of the 2016 election, the Green Party candidate was the spoiler who gave Trump his winning margins in the key battleground states whereby he upset Hillary Clinton despite losing the national popular vote.
It’s true that Stein won more votes than Trump’s plurality in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in 2016. So if all of her voters had instead voted for Clinton, Trump would have not become the 45th president and the hinges of political history would have moved in a very different direction. But even though Stein was running distinctly to Clinton’s left and appealing to disgruntled Bernie Sanders primary voters, it’s not 100 percent clear what would have happened had she not run (the Greens, of course, are a regular presence in presidential elections; it’s not as though they were conjured up by Trump in 2016). Some might have actually voted for Trump, and even more might have stayed at home or skipped the presidential ballot line.
The picture is complicated by the presence of an even larger minor-party candidacy in 2016, that of Libertarian Gary Johnson, who won 3 percent of the national presidential vote compared to Stein’s one percent. One academic analysis utilizing exit polls concluded that Clinton would have probably lost even had neither of these minor-party candidates run.
In 2024, Libertarian Chase Oliver is on more state ballots (47) than Stein (39), including all seven battleground states (Stein is on six of them, all but Nevada). Traditionally Libertarians draw a bit more from Republicans than from Democrats (many of them wouldn’t vote for a major-party candidate in any event). But it’s understandably the Greens who worry Democrats, particularly since Stein is counting on defections from Democratic-leaning voters who are unhappy with the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel in its war on Gaza. As the Times of Israel reported last month, there are signs Stein’s strategy is working to some extent with Muslim voters:
“A Council on American-Islamic Relations poll released this month showed that in Michigan, home to a large Arab American community, 40 percent of Muslim voters backed the Green Party’s Stein. Republican candidate Donald Trump got 18% with Harris, who is US President Joe Biden’s vice president, trailing at 12%.
“Stein, a Jewish anti-Israel activist, also leads Harris among Muslims in Arizona and Wisconsin, battleground states with sizable Muslim populations where Biden defeated Trump in 2020 by slim margins.”
It’s also worth noting that Stein chose a Muslim (and Black) running mate in California professor Butch Ware.
Any comparisons of her 2024 campaign with her past spoiler role should come with the important observation that non-major-party voting is likely to be much smaller this year than it was in 2016, when fully 5.7 percent of presidential voters opted for someone other than Trump or Clinton. The non-major-party vote dropped to 1.9 percent — a third of the 2016 percentage — in 2020. Earlier this year it looked like independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would push the non-major-party vote even higher than it was eight years ago. But then Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race, which reduced the “double-hater” vote unhappy with both major-party candidates, followed by Kennedy’s withdrawal and endorsement of Trump showed that particular threat evaporating. Despite his efforts to fold his candidacy into Trump’s in the battleground states, Kennedy is still on the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin, though it’s anybody’s guess how many voters will exercise that zombie option and who will benefit. Another independent candidate, Cornel West, stayed in the race, but he’s struggled with both funding and ballot access; he’s not on the ballot in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, or Pennsylvania, and he’s competing with Stein for left-bent voters unhappy with Kamala Harris. Unsurprisingly, Republican operatives have helped both Stein and West in their ballot-access efforts.
There are some indications that the non-major-party vote will drop even more than it did earlier this year. A new Pew survey shows that only 12 percent of registered voters who express a preference for a minor-party or independent candidate are “extremely motivated to vote,” and only 27 percent of these voters think it “really matters who wins.” These are not people who will be rushing to the polls in a state of excitement.
It’s hard to find a credible recent national poll showing Stein, Oliver, or West with more than one percent of the vote. But a late-September New York Times-Siena poll of Michigan, with its significant Arab-American and Muslim populations, did show Stein with 2 percent of likely voters. In an extremely close race, even small splinter votes can matter, as the experience of 2000 in Florida will eternally remind Democrats. Had that year’s Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader, not appeared on the ballot, it’s pretty likely Al Gore would have been the 43rd president. So anything can happen in what amounts to a presidential jump ball, and you can expect Democrats to continue calling Stein a spoiler while Republicans not-so-quietly wish her well.
Try this site also. Good, intelligent reading.
http://gadflyer.com/
Dare I cite “nattering nabobs of negativism”?
To echo something RT said earlier, Dems’ pessimism and self-defeating psychology can be their own worst political enemy.
I live in liberal Seattle, and I’m amazed here how many people in one breath champion Kucinich / Nader / Sharpton, but then sigh that Bush will win anyway so they won’t even vote. They think that the GOP machine is unstoppable and grant it near-supernatural powers.
I often direct these people to DR to give them some positive signs and motivation!
Please give it some space, Space! Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.
Kerry = positive, Bush = negative.
Focus, focus, focus. Don’t fall into their false numbers game. The polls are useless in telling the real story. Polls are designed to brainwash the masses and are easily manipulated to do just that. The votes will rule. Think positive and talk positive about a future with President Kerry, show everyone the right way.
Save the negative for the liars cowboy club clan. oops.
Donkey Rising is engaging in nothing less than willfull ignorance. The CBS poll contains far more bad news than good. Among the disturbing numbers:
1. Kerry TRAILS Bush in battleground states.
2. Nearly twice as many people think Bush says what he believes than think Kerry does despite the fact that Bush has been lying to them for 3 years.
3. More people still think Bush will protect the U.S. from a terrorist attack.
4. More people think Kerry has been running a mostly negative campaign.
Yes, the numbers are trending away from Bush. But still, they should be much more favorable to Kerry.
How’s this for a play on their own words. Yes they are secretive evil doers who lie and try to hide what they are up to.
Someone said the other day that Nixon would be a tremendous improvement over this president. How sad of a state of affairs America has dropped to because of the Supreme Court’s installation of this person to run our country. Fortunately real American’s will have the last word come November. You know I used to think I hated Nixon and Reagan, just goes to show you how a new reality can alter what you think you knew ( I still hate them but now I have been shown that hatred has multiple levels).
Sorry just venting.
More good news in California where the latest poll has Bush at 38% approval rate to Kerry at about 50%. Bush never had a chance in California anyway, but the numbers have shown a tremendous downward slide for Bush in the last week or two.
Maxcat, They are a bunch of liars, but if I had to choose one word to describe this administration it would be “secretive”. They put Nixon to shame. John Dean’s book makes that clear.
Hey let’s start using the “L” word applied to this administration. All of them and their kind are always so fond of throwing that at the progressives like it means something dirty and bad. Well now it does but only when applied to them. That’s right, the “L” word as in LIARS.
Goodbye Mr. Bush.
Good News today. In addition to the Pew Report poll indicating the overall approval trend continues downward — now 43% down 5 points from March, Minnesota apparently went Kerry nuts over the last month. The previous poll had a 2 point spread, but today’s Star-Tribune poll puts Bush at 38 and Kerry at 50. A mite of progress. I was hoping Ruy was back, I am looking forward to his take on the Pew.
Prediction: Israel has the green light to assassinate Arafat. If there’s a suicied bombing in Israel that kills more than a few people, Arafat is gone.
My fear is that the Administration is rapidly reaching a point where they are willing to take a gamble on sheer global chaos to win.
Am I paranoid??
John Kerry will win in November by a considerable margin. Bush has betrayed his own parties agenda, betrayed democracy, and betrayed all good Americans. No amount of semantics will erase what Bush has led this country into. Nothing will wash the blood of our soldiers from his coat tails. All of America will speak and Bush will be silenced.
Joe, Kerry comes across to me as someone who–like Bill Clinton, and when he has the time to do so–prefers to be able to collect factual information and differing views and mull it over before making especially important decisions. To that I say “Hurray!! I miss that.” I agree with that part of what you said.
He does not come across to me as someone who makes decisions with a lack of self assurance, though. I think that’s what the Republicans want the public to believe. But I don’t have that perception of him at all. He comes across to me as generally quite sure-footed, in fact.
What really has to be done is a bit more organizing on the ground. Someone put up a dairy-entry on Kos about the lack of an organization in Ohio. There’s the same weakness here in Illinois.
This has got to change — rapidamente
Grush, it’s very tough to disengage your own feelings, your fear, your hope, from what is really going on out there in 50 different media markets – especially when you’re in one of the markets that is not in a target state.
Plus, the media saturation of NY leads people to buy into the “who’s up, who’s down’ mentality. If one candidate gets more press one week, it feels like they had a better week. Well, if that happens 6 weeks in a row, there’s a shift. But 1, 2, or even 3 weeks are too small of a time frame, unless we’re in October.
Sara: I too live in a swing state but in a very Republican area, West Michigan. Consequently, Kerry isn’t making any cable buys here to speak of. I suspect that the ad buys are heavier in the Detroit metro region.
I also suspect Kerry is in the process of developing a more centrist message and firming up campaign strategy. It will be a slow process for Kerry in that he doesn’t appear to be a person who makes decisions quickly or with a great deal of self assurance.
I hope he speaks out soon though on the need to finance our Iraq operations with a tax cut roll back for those higher income people. It would (1) help explain his vote on the $87 billion, (2) remind voters that we went there for no good reasons and(3) spread the sarifices of the war more equitably, something voters can identify with.
Sara,
That’s great, and encouraging. I live in New York, so the general din of life drowns out such things. Maybe Warren Buffet does have it right investing from Omaha.
Plus, I make it a point to listen to and read the enemy: Hannity, New York post, etc (plus, Page Six beats anything the Times has). So I have trouble separating signal from noise.
Still, after the Clarke testimony, Rice’s ridiculous waverings and the increasingly anarchy in Iraq, Bush should be down by 20 points.
It is simply not in Kerry’s interests to engage in the kind of tit for tat advertising war Bush undertook when he went up with his ads a few weeks ago.
Kerry needed the rest, and his primary centered staff needed to be re-organized, built out, and re-focused on tasks for the long haul. It is to Kerry’s advantage to be off the hot trail while this is done. Moreover, some other matters, such as the 911 commission were scheduled, and the better part of valor was to get out of the way and let them happen on their own., Kerry needed to raise big time money, and he is doing so effectively.
From where I sit in a battleground state, I see lots of advertising — Kerry’s stuff plus a number of good 527 efforts. I see lots of party planning meetings being announced, I see campaign staff being recruited and appointed to camapign jobs, I see announcements that surrogates are visiting town and making appearances. I would much prefer to see good organization and the finances to sustain it through to November than I would witness a hot altercation now about an issue that could easily be moot come November.
Not a very scientific or quantifiable observation here, but does anyone else sense the momentum slipping away from the Dems?
I feel as though Kerry is invisible… and that the major media is covering the candidates in proportion to their advertising spend.
Images of Bush crosscut with Iraq carnage, I’m afraid, will help him. “The world is a terrifying mess, don’t take any chances right now.” (Of course, the world is aflame because Bush decided to throw gasoline on the fire after 9/11).
One key dynamic is that Kerry really CAN’T affirmatively define himself. Bush’s deficit makes any spending on social programs impossible, cultural issues are a minefield, and there is general ‘consensus’ among the ‘elites’ on current foreign ‘policy.’
I’m concerned.