Readers are much better at asking smart questions than I am, which is why I have been ending each of these articles with a request to get in touch with me. Earlier this week, Alan wrote me an email which asked:
I would like to know more about what supporters of the Greens and Libertarians will actually do on US polling day. Do we expect them to vote for their own lost causes as a principled act of faith, stay at home or switch to a mainstream party?
It’s a great question. For now, though, I’m going to set aside what these individuals are going to do on November 8 – partly because I think predictive journalism is having a bad effect on democracy and partly because I haven’t seen enough data to give you a solid answer.
Instead, I want to take one step back and consider just how many Americans are considering a choice that isn’t Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump.
There are a lot of them. According to Real Clear Politics’ polling averages, about 15% of Americans are currently contemplating a choice which isn’t one of the two main parties. About 7% support the Libertarian party nominee, Gary Johnson, another 2% support the Green party nominee, Jill Stein, and almost 6% either support another candidate (like the independent candidate Evan McMullin) or else they’re undecided.
Unfortunately for them, candidates whose surnames aren’t Clinton or Trump have approximately a 0% chance of winning any states, let alone the election. But they could nevertheless influence national results by affecting other candidates’ vote share. The numbers on this are pretty fascinating right now.
Contrary to popular belief, third-party votes don’t just come from would-be Democratic voters – they appear to be coming equally from potential Republicans. One way to measure this is to contrast Clinton and Trump’s vote shares in a two-way race with their support in a four-way race. Both candidates lose a few percentage points but the overall takeaway remains the same: Clinton is currently three percentage points ahead of Trump.
The problem for Hillary is that three percentage points just isn’t good enough, especially when you take into account the inaccuracies of polling. The two leading candidates are pretty much neck and neck and recent political history suggests that could be a big problem for Clinton.
In 2000, the Green party presidential candidate Ralph Nader played a huge role in securing George Bush’s victory, in part because Nader eroded Al Gore’s vote share in the crucial state of Florida. The latest polling from Florida suggests the state is going to be just as much of a battleground in 2016 – just half a percentage point separates Trump and Clinton.
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You can get in touch with any questions you’d like to see answered in this series by emailing mona.chalabi@theguardian.com
