Presidential spoilers and their (lack of) historical precedents

Great Debates
1

Whenever a minor party makes a real go at the Presidency, partisan duopolists make up stories about how voting for the third candidate will make the wrong person win. Some of this is caused by a simple misunderstanding of how elections function; votes for Nader will not be added to votes for Bush, and votes for Buchanan will not be added to votes for Gore.

Notwithstanding this extreme level of disorientation, “vote for X is a vote for Y” arguments also have a slightly more sophisticated side. They take into account that state electoral votes can be one by simple pluralities; that if supporters of a certain movement are split between two candidates, that movement might fail to a numerically smaller opposing movement.

This, of course, creates the massive question of which candidates are clustered around the same movement. I mean, if the “spoiler” weren’t in the race, who would that person’s would-be supporters voting for? The answer is always presumed to be obvious, even though it isn’t. People say Perot voters would have gone to Bush in '92; I (and Electoral Studies, can’t remember which issue but it was 1993) say they would have been split about evenly. People are equally sure that Nader voters would go to Gore in '00; I say most of them would stay home or vote for some other minor party.

But aside from the main problem with these arguments, is the incredibly thin historical evidence. Oh, sure, people can always talk about “that one election that happened that one time when the one guy drew votes from that other guy and that bad guy won” but they can never remember the year. I’ll supply the years and refute the examples:

1860 Lincoln only won about 39% of the vote, so if you added all his opponents’ votes up the Frankencrat would have won. No. Lincoln won overall voting majorities in a group of states with an absolute majority of the electoral votes. A unified Democratic party would have run a better campaign, and Lincoln would have been defeated. Pure speculation. Furthermore, the third-place candidate in electoral terms was not a Democrat; Bell ran on the Constitutional Union Party ticket (I think he was a former Whig) so it’s not really fair to graft him on to the Frankencrat.

1912 Roosevelt drew enough votes from Taft to allow Wilson to win. This is the only close example of a spoiler election, but even it is really muddled. Roosevelt drew votes from Taft? Hardly. Taft came in third in the general election after getting trounced in the primaries. He carved out the GOP nomination because primaries didn’t select many delegates in those days (or for several decades thereafter). The very idea that Roosevelt drew votes from anyone falls afoul of another problem: eliminating the center candidate from a hypothetical example proves nothing. Roosevelt voters would not logically be any closer to Taft than they would to Wilson. Conservative Taft voters, on the other hand, would probably be a lot closer to Roosevelt, who at least was an ex-Republican Progressive, than they would to Wilson, who was a progressive Democrat. If Taft hadn’t been in the race, Roosevelt would have had smooth sailing; if Roosevelt hadn’t been in the race, there’s no telling where the Progressives would have gone. The Republicans spoiled a third party.
1968 Wallace drew enough votes from Humphrey that Nixon won. What, so the extreme right would have flocked to the moderate left to defeat the moderate right? I don’t think so. This argument is founded on notions of the Solid South - notions which survived mainly because “Solid” and “South” both begin with “S”. The Republicans had won the deep South in 1964; what reason is there to believe that a Minnesotan would have had an easier time in 1968 than a Texan did in 1964?
1980 Anderson drew enough votes from Carter that Reagan won. Like Lincoln, Reagan won popular majorities in states with a majority of the electoral vote. Even making the risky assumption that all Anderson voters would have moved to Carter, Reagan still wins
1992 Perot drew enough votes from Bush for Clinton to win. Any evidence that Bush was the second choice of most Perot voters? None that I’ve seen. Electoral Studies says the split was about 50-50. Are anti-establishment Perot voters really going to flock to President Bush in preference to Governor Clinton? In truth, had 34% of Perot voters moved to Clinton, and 66% of them moved to Bush, Clinton still would have won (provided it was a uniform swing).
1996 Perot drew enough votes from Bush for Dole to win. Clinton won about 49.2% of the popular vote this year. Perot supporters are closer to the Republicans this year, but it sure wouldn’t take many to push Clinton over the top. Nader pulled in 0.7% this year; Libertarians, Natural Lawers, and various Socialists got change. Would they all have switched to Dole if he were the only non-Clinton on the ballot?

I’m not saying a spoiler isn’t possible in the future, I’m just pointing out that it is not a simple matter. All of this would be academic if we had a modern election system (direct popular election with a majority rule and either a French-style delayed run-off or an Australian-style instant run-off). But we don’t, so we have to guess. Lots of people seem to think that all the Nader voters would line up happily to vote for someone they (claim they) consider a “corporate whore” (ooh … rhyming put-downs! This one has the Democrats sobbing piteously). They are wrong, but I can’t prove that. What I have shown is that there is no historical precedent for third party spoilers in Presidential elections.

2

I realize the following comments don’t DIRECTLY address the issue brought up, but they’re relevant, so I’ll make them anyway.

Up front, for the tiny handful who don’t know it, I generally side with the far right- not always comfortably, mind you, but that’s where you’ll usually find me. I say this only because I don’t want anyone to suspect me of ulterior motives. Obviously, in THIS election, it’s to my advantage if disgruntled leftists vote en masse for Ralph nader, throwing the election to George W. Bush. And there’s a decent chance Nader voters will do exactly that.

But is that a reason for Nader voters to grit their teeth and vote for Gore? Not necessarily. And my reasons for saying this vary greatly from those of the original poster.

In 1964, Barry Goldwater was annihilated by Lyndon Johnson in the election. Johnson, like JFK before him, HAD been afraid that liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller would win the 1964 election handily if he won the GOP nomination.

In 1972, George McGovern was crushed as no candidate has ever been crushed before.

In 1976, Ronald Reagan opposed Gerald Ford for the GOP nomination. Not only did he lose, but the weakened GOP was beaten by Jimmy Carter.

OBVIOUSLY, Reagan, McGovern and Goldwater were losers at the time. But in retrospect, do they STILL look like losers? The vision of Goldwater and Reagan now dominates the Republican party. ANd for a loong time, the vision of McGovern dominated the Democratic party. Even now, nobody who differs significantly from Reagan can hope to win the Republican nomination, and no one who differs dramatically from McGovern can hope to win the Democratic nomination.

So, SOMETIMES, even a lost cause can be worth voting for. The truth is, the center rules in the USA. Fringe groups, be they conservative or liberal, can win ONLY to the extent that they move the center of a major party a LITTLE closer to their direction. IF Pat Buchanan forces George W. Bush to run a hard-right campaign and to govern like a conservative, he’s WON, even if he gets very few votes. ANd IF Ralph Nader forces Al Gore to pander to the left, to re-energize the party’s liberal ideologues, then Nader’s WON, even if he gets only 3% of the vote.

3

I think I am terrible at naming threads. All the other “Nader / third party great debate” threads have gotten a lot more attention than this so now I am going to mope pathetically.
mope
Okay I am done now.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. Small enthusiastic movements can nudge the major parties in any number of directions. To the extent that the Nader people succeed in nudging the Democrats to the left, they will hurt the Democrats and progressives in general for several years. The only reason Clinton could win was because he was near the center. If Gore loses a lot of votes to Nader it will convince a lot of people he is too far right to win; it will convince me that this just isn’t a good year for the Democrats. Gore would lose a lot more votes from centrists by moving left than he will lose to Nader standing where he is at the moderate wing of the party.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, let me say that any policy-oriented* attempt to recapture Nader voters will only hurt the Democratic Party. Such an attempt might succeed in winning some fraction of the 3% or so of the active voters which Nader wins this year, at the cost of alienating some fraction of the 40-50% that Gore wins this year. Sounds like bad math.

A much more favorable (and extremely unlikely) scenario would be for the Greens and their potential allies (e.g. moderate Socialists, the Pacific Party, remnants of the New Alliance and Citizens’ Party) to get together and become an established, growing force on the left. The Reform Party once had a good shot at becoming the established center party, but, let’s face it, there is less room in the center. There is much more room on the left, particularly if Gore wins. The thing is, Nader makes Gore look weak on environmental protection. That is hurting Gore because the people who hear Nader’s message are the people who like the latter best; if the same message were to get out to the voting public at large, it would be a very good thing for Gore.

It’s very unlikely, because the voting public at large isn’t prepared to deal with a large number like 3. Ballots are already hugely long in this country, filled with two-party races for County Clerk and Justice of the Peace. The Greens might win a handful of low-level races this year if they’ve had the presence of mind to field candidates, but I doubt it will be enough to give them the ongoing name recognition required to be remembered in 2004.

*Purely rhetorical efforts (e.g. warm-hearted “let’s bury our differences and join hands to defeat George W. Oil” speeches) might have some success at less political cost.

4

Who the heck is “Frankencrat”?

5

I’m guessing Frankencrat would be the two democrat candidates, Breckenridge and Douglas, merged into one in some freaky experiment.

Together they would have gotten 50% of the poular vote (Lincoln 39%), but still only a third of the electoral votes.

6

Then, technically, shouldn’t it be called Frankencrat’s Monster? :wink:

7

Yes, third parties steal votes from the main two. So what? That’s what they’re there for. No one runs for political office hoping that they can steal enough votes from Candidate A to put Candidate B in office. They’re running to win. Nader would have to be insane not to realize he’s actually pulling votes away from Gore. But the thing is, he wouldn’t be running if he wanted Gore in office in the first place!

The 5% rule is pretty damn stupid. My feeling is that any candidate that manages to make it onto the ballot of all 50 states should have all the rights bestowed upon Democrats and Republicans. That includes federal assistance and participation in the debates.

When this country started off, there were quite a number of parties. In the 1796 election, there were SEVEN major candidates that split the electoral vote (including funkadelic master George Clinton). The “other” vote, with I don’t know how many candidates that includes, managed to get 10 electoral votes. John Adams (Federalist) got 71 votes while Thomas Jefferson (Dem-Rep) got 68. Thomas Pinckney (ANOTHER Federalist) received 59. Talk about a close call here. You don’t think the losing two would have wanted the other 4 candidates to drop out? You don’t think that if John Adams didn’t want Pinckney to stop stealing his votes? You think those other candidates cared? They wanted to win! That’s what the election is about.

As I mentioned in another thread, this is a free country and a democracy. Just as any candidate can run for any reason he or she deems a rational reason, so too can voters vote for whomever they see fit as the best candidate to run the country. Yes, you’re probably “wasting” your vote by voting for a third party. But if you’re doing that anyway, you probably don’t want either of the first two to win in the first place, so why does it matter?

8

Eggs à la Ted is correct. I bring up the Frankenstein reference because I think it is unnatural to take two candidates and add their totals together, as if their decisions to run against each other were an accident and all their voters could get along in a big happy family. Maybe the Breckenridge voters would have gone for Douglas in a run-off, had their been a direct majoritarian election, but we’ll never know.

I was using “Frankencrat” because “Frankencrat’s monster” is too many syllables, and as you can see I am a very terse writer. <- joke

9

If there is one thing that our electorial sstem is good for, it is that it permits an expression through voting where there is one solid winner in a district.

For example, here in Colorado, I plan to vote for Browne.
There is virtually no way that it can hurt Bush because he already has the state locked, but it helps Browne.

10

Just thought I’d share this excellent site I just found for past results called Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Lots of numbers and big colorful pictures.