Why A Third-Party Candidate Might Help Trump — And Spoil The Election For Biden – By Geoffrey Skelley (FiveThirtyEight) / July 13, 2023
We don’t need to have major-party presidential nominees to have a conversation about a third-party spoiler candidate affecting the 2024 presidential election. Faced with the prospect of a rematch between President Biden and former President Donald Trump, at least two alternatives have already emerged: The bipartisan No Labels organization is working toward fielding a centrist presidential ticket, while Cornel West, a well-known public intellectual and political progressive, has launched a bid for the Green Party’s nomination.
These efforts have Democrats fretting that both bids could garner support from voters who might otherwise back Biden against Trump, thereby boosting Trump’s chances of winning. So what do we know about the situations in which third-party bids become spoiler campaigns?
Initial evidence suggests that, in a rematch between Biden and Trump, a No Labels and/or West campaign could pull marginal support from Biden and subtly shift the election toward Trump. Whether this would actually make for a potential spoiler, though, is a different question: History — and common sense — suggest that these possible third-party candidates would be most likely to affect the outcome if the overall race were close. But in our deeply divided political era, close elections have been the norm, which makes a spoiler candidacy a live possibility.
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