The media wasn’t 10% as hostile to Trump as he deserved. The dude literally advocated for multiple war crimes and used neo-Nazi propaganda.
DSYoungEsq wrote: “A LIBERAL third-party??? When have the liberals ever offered a third-party candidate to the left of the Democratic Party in the period 1950 on??”
Well, there’s no such thing as “the liberals”, but I understand that in 2000 some guy named Nader might have met your criteria. Had a bit of an impact on the outcome too.
If the media had been 10x more hostile to Trump, it would have give everyone an “out-to-get-Trump” impression, maybe *gained *him votes.
In a two way race, for a major party candidate, only a monumental scandal of unquestionable circumstances following the latest date that the party couldn’t change their candidate would result in 13 or fewer electoral votes. That circumstance might even result in a delay of the election to allow a new candidate to run. With a broader field third party candidates who might otherwise never earn a single elector might chew up enough to leave a major party candidate with very few.
Ok, yes, sort of. Concedo.
Well, now you’re just admitting that many Americans will cheerfully vote against their own interests just out of spite.
Isn’t this, at least to some degree, what happened?
I have family members who acknowledge voting for him just to piss off liberals.
Why wouldn’t Jill Stein fit into this category as well?
There is always a candidate more “liberal” than the Democratic Party candidate, because Green Party. But, with respect, a candidate who polls less than 5% of the votes of the nation isn’t really a “third-party candidate” as I was talking about. Think rather of Ross Perot in 1992 (or even 1996, when he got 8%).
Nader only registers as a possible because the circumstances of the 2000 election (especially Florida) mean that he might actually have had an impact on the general election, despite polling only 2.7% of the votes.
Or John Anderson in 1980 who took just under 7% and he had some serious credentials.
The OP’s discussion is about major party candidates getting 13 EVs. Talk of 3rd party candidates are a distraction from this.
Bad as Trump is, Cruz, who was almost nominated, would have been even worse.
Right, thanks.
My question is basically, if the most hated person in America could be the Democratic or Republican nominee, do they get past 13 electoral votes.
Yes, easily. When Trump said he could murder someone and it wouldn’t affect his numbers, he was correct.
A serial killer that was anti-abortion would easily win bible belt states, because if you believe that abortion is literally murdering babies, you’ll forgive any lesser evil to combat it. And everything is a lesser evil.
In a straight up two way race you’d have to have an awfully hated figure to produce that kind of result. You have people who won’t vote for the best Democrat over the worst Republican (or vice versa) 2016 isn’t typical because trump and Clinton both had huge “anti-fan clubs”. It’s hard for those of us who have watched politics for a long time to see 2016 as anything but a landslide if the Republican candidate had been “Generic outsider businessman” Vs. Clinton or “Generic female former Senator and Sec of State” Vs. trump but maybe some of the underlying dynamics have shifted. It used to be that each party started out with, say, 40% and they’d fight for the middle twenty, then it seemed to get to a place where each party started with 45% and they’d fight for the middle ten.
A final word (from me, anyway) on the subject of third party candidates. It does seem that a serious credentialed third party could deprive one of the two other candidates of enough popular votes to flip states electorally. As with Nader in FL in 2000. And also with Stein in MI in 2016. Imagine that effect in many states and I can see a major party candidate failing to break double digits electorally.