Chris Sununu, the popular Republican governor of New Hampshire, says Donald Trump “cannot mathematically win in November” of next year. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor now running for the Republican nomination, uses three words to describe Trump: “Loser, loser, loser.”
They make a good case. In his two previous runs for the White House, Trump failed to attract even 47% of the vote, let alone a majority. His core supporters remain intensely loyal, but there are not enough of them to decide the election. If Trump opponents stay unified, it’s hard to argue with Sununu’s calculations.
But that is a big and dangerous “if.” A well-funded nonpartisan group called No Labels is threatening to run an independent ticket next year, possibly headed by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and is already organizing to garner space on all 50 state ballots. Fragmenting the anti-Trump vote is the best way, and probably the only way, the twice-indicted ex-president can return to the White House.
“A third-party candidacy is very, very, very likely to elect Trump,” Democratic pollster Greg Schneiders told Axios after his firm, Prime Group, conducted a national survey on the question last month.
“There is one obvious way that Trump could win,” adds Democratic strategist Dan Pfeiffer. “It keeps me up at night because it’s how he won in 2016. It’s staring us all in the face — a third-party candidate. And specifically, a third-party candidate named Joe Manchin.”
Those fears are justified for many reasons, starting with history. In 2016, almost 6% of all voters — 7.8 million of them — cast ballots for third-party candidates, mainly on the Libertarian and Green Party lines, and those votes almost certainly cost Hillary Clinton the election.
Many of those defectors were disappointed supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders; many others simply despised Clinton and never thought Trump could win anyway. But he did — squeaking by in the key states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where third-party votes far exceeded his narrow margins of victory.
Four years later, third parties attracted less than 2% of the 2020 vote, as many apostates saw the damaging effects of the Trump presidency and returned to their Democratic roots. “Overall, third-party 2016 voters who turned out in 2020 voted 53%-36% for Biden over Trump, with 10% opting for a third-party candidate,” reports Pew.
These swing voters made the difference, reversing the outcome in crucial states that had previously backed Trump. But just barely. A switch of 44,000 votes in three states — Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin — would have given them to Trump, creating a tie in the Electoral College and throwing the outcome into the House of Representatives. American politics is so closely divided that Biden has very little margin for error.
The Democratic nightmare that 2016 will repeat itself is made worse by another brutal fact — that of Joe Biden’s weakness as an aging and uninspiring candidate. The president’s approval rating remains stuck in the low 40s, and despite favorable economic news, the national mood remains sour. Only about a quarter of Americans say the country is headed in the “right direction,” while two-thirds believe it’s on the “wrong track.”
The Prime Group poll highlights the president’s vulnerability. In a head-to-head race with Trump, Biden leads by 52% to 48%. But when a third-party option is introduced, Trump gains 5 points and takes a 40-to-39 lead, while the independent candidate attracts the remaining 21%.
In addition, 2016 is not the only memory disturbing Democratic sleep habits. In 2000, George Bush won Florida — and the presidency — by 537 votes. Ralph Nader, the liberal crusader running as an independent, polled over 97,000 votes in that state. If only 1% — 1%! — of the Nader voters in Florida had backed Al Gore, he would have been president.
No Labels started around 2010 as a response to the extremist right-wing rhetoric of the Tea Party movement, and in a congressional context, the organization can play a positive and constructive role. The legislative process requires centrist negotiators who can forge bargains that command bipartisan support.
But presidential politics is a profoundly different arena. It’s a no-holds-barred, winner-take-all battle with no room for compromises and no trophies for second place.
The No Labels organizers insist they will not act as “spoilers” and are only interested in winning the White House. But that’s a totally fanciful goal. The plain fact is, they cannot win. They can only act as spoilers. They can only throw Trump a lifeline.
Do they really want to do that?
(Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. His new book is “Cokie: A Life Well Lived.” He can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.)
