Right now the state of Utah, generally considered one of the most republican loyal states, is unlikely to vote for trump. Supporting Hillary seems unlikely as well. I believe that libertarian Gary Johnson has a chance of winning there and possibly in his home state of New Mexico.
Barring some run off decided by the house of representatives I don’t see him actually winning the general election. However I think a third party candidate winning one or two states would be a huge game changer and make people think that a third party isn’t an impossibility.
What do you think the result would be if he actually wins a couple states?
Trump +12 in Utah over Clinton; Johnson at 16%. Even if he took Utah’s six electoral votes and maybe another state, incredibly unlikely, I seriously doubt it would be a game changer. Perot got 19% nationally in '92 and that didn’t change much.
Here’s the latest poll from Utah. Johnson does well compared to national polling, but he’s still ten points behind second place. And Hillary is actually above what Obama got in 2012. So I think the best Johnson is like to get there is a close second place.
Of course, Trump hasn’t gotten around to insulting the Mormon’s yet, and its hard to believe he’ll make it three more months without doing so, so I guess you never know.
In anycase, I doubt Johnson picking up a state or two would really change anything. Trump is such a weird outlier of a candidate, that I don’t think anyone is going to draw any lessons from the 2016 election other than “nominating a reality TV show character as a Presidential candidate is not a good idea.”
Over at Upshot, the 4 electoral models give Trump 81-95% odds of winning Utah. That doesn’t mean he will. It means that’s what the polls say adjusting for the economy and the fact that the election is about 88 days in the future.
Thinking about it more, I’m kinda curious who “other” is in that poll. 14% seems really high for people just throwing out random names, I feel like there must be some local politician whose drawing votes there. Is there some third party in Utah that’s attracting support there, or are there a lot of Utahians just planning to write in Romney or what?
It sort of makes sense that Mormon’s disatisfied with Trump wouldn’t necessarily flock to pro-choice, pro-drug legalization Gary Johnson. And Jill Stein or Hillary would be even less appealing. So I’m wondering if there’s some other candidate they’re using as a protest vote.
A good thought, but he didn’t announce till after the last day of the survey, so I don’t think it could be him. That said, he might well get those votes in the next poll. He certainly seems a better fit for the state than Johnson or Trump.
Mormons pretty universally hate trump. He’s crude and crass which does nothing to endure him. More importantly his attack on Muslims, especially the idea of banning them, is extremely offensive to Mormons who remember all to well the persecutions and open warfare we’ve suffered at the hands of the federal and various state governments.
Actually, I’d be VERY happy if Gary Johnson took half the red states. That’d be awesome. Hillary would still win, Johnson would look a little more credible and it would add to the embarrassment the Republican party will suffer in November.
Yes. And it would be a blow for good governance at its most basic level. Johnson and Clinton are qualified. Trump is unsuitable.
I guess I disagree about it adding to the embarrassment. Currently, the GOP is morphing into a far-right European party, a party of white supremacy. Though the party is divided, GOP push back against the Trumpists is not negligible but pretty limited, setting aside the electorally small but influential national security policy crowd. If the Libertarians took 5 states, there might be an alternative path forward. Might. Recall that Ron Paul flirts with paleoconservatism.
Demagogues like George Wallace typically fail. But they leave behind a big mess to sweep up.
At any rate as I see it, there is a civil war in the GOP between crackpot supply siders and white supremacist nativists. The pragmatist wing has atrophied. A bump for Gary Johnson/William Weld might be interpreted as a promise to vote Republican next time if they nominate someone remotely acceptable or knowledgeable about policy. It might be interpreted as a re-affirmation of the Bill of Rights. Or responsible conservatism.
You have to go back to the People’s Party in the 1890s to find an actual third-party movement that influenced the major parties. Any success third-party movements had in the U.S. through the entire 20th Century was due to one strong personality who split from either the Democrats or Republicans, usually over one issue.
George Wallace in 1968 won five states and 46 electoral votes. In 1972 he was back as a Democrat. Heard anything from the American Independent Party lately?
Strom Thurmond got 39 electoral votes in 1948. There’s no evidence his run changed Democratic policies one bit.
Bob LaFollette won Wisconsin and 13 electoral votes in 1924. The Wisconsin Progressives were simply liberal Republicans and the party faded away in the 1940s.
And Theodore Roosevelt formed his own third party only after the Republicans wouldn’t nominate him in 1912.
If Johnson wins a state, Libertarians become even more insufferable than they are.
It’s not going to happen. If it does happen because tens of millions of Republicans are fleeing Trump, then the story is totally about Trump and Republicans, not about the third party. There is no third party movement in America today. A slight possibility exists that one may emerge after November but that’s not realistic. The two existing major parties are well-entrenched in every state at every level. People keep thinking that because they only pay attention to politics every four years and only at the presidential level that they can ignore everything else. Actual politicians care every minute. They can’t win city council with a third party.
If things were different from reality, then yes, things would be different from reality.
But why would it matter if some 3rd party no-one won 1 state, especially if it was a unique state like Utah? The US is not like Utah. Wake us up when a 3rd party guys wins Ohio. Or Florida.
Plus, if Johnson wins in Utah, it’d be sort of silly to interpret it as indicating a huge upswell in Mormon interest in the prochoice, pro-legalization, pro-gay rights politics of Gary Johnson. It’d be seen, rightly, as just people reaching for the most obvious protest candidate against Trump, regardless of that candidates actual politics. And thus, basically just an extension of two-party politics, rather than an actual vote for a third party.
(also worth noting that while Trump hasn’t gotten around to insulting the Mormons yet, Johnson has)
The difference I see is that currently nobody believes that a third party candidate can actually have any chance, this may change that perception for many and perception is reality.
Johnson’s “problem” is that he’s relatively in favor of gay rights. He’s said he is opposed to the idea that people can cite their religious beliefs as a reason to refuse service to gay people.