The former Republican, marijuana-smoking, Everest mountaineering ex-governor of New Mexico and presidential nominee of the Libertarian party has a problem: he’s barred from the presidential debates. To appear on stage with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump this autumn, Gary Johnson needs to boost his national polling numbers to 15% from around 8% now.
Without that national exposure, and the blockbuster ratings the three scheduled Clinton-Trump dust-ups are likely to produce, it’s hard for anyone to see how Johnson, 63, or either of two other minor-party candidates, the Green party’s Jill Stein or even Evan McMullin, a 40-year-old former CIA counterterrorism officer, could ever become more than mere electoral curiosities.
But the emergence of three independent candidates, during a year of record dissatisfaction with the major party candidates, may still make for an unpredictable twist to the story. Polling data suggests libertarians on both sides of the political divide are giving independent candidates a second look, and in Las Vegas on Friday, Johnson and Stein spoke before a gathering of Asian American and Pacific Islander voters to press their cases.
Soft-spoken and wearing Nikes, Johnson presented a platform of social libertarianism, fiscal conservatism and non-interventionism in foreign affairs. He argued at the gathering that in this, “the craziest election of all time”, he had a chance: “I might be the next president of the United States.”
A just-released WSJ-NBC poll gave Johnson 15% in the crucial swing state of Colorado, and Stein 6%. In Las Vegas, he was asked repeatedly if a vote for him or any third-party candidate was somehow wasted.
“A wasted vote is voting for somebody you don’t believe in. That’s a wasted vote,” Johnson said. “Vote for the person you believe in – that’s how you bring about change. I hope after having made my pitch today that you’ll realize, if you want to waste your vote on Clinton or Trump, have at it.”
Stein, who spoke separately at the event, similarly argued that many Americans were looking for an alternative to Trump and Hillary Clinton, whom she dubbed as “the most disliked and untrusted” major-party nominees in US history.
“Democracy needs a moral compass,” she told a gathering of Asian American and Pacific Island groups. “It’s not just about who you don’t like the most or who you are most afraid of.”
Stein, who like Johnson represented her party in 2012, has outlined policy positions that include a “Green New Deal”, focused on renewable energy jobs and aimed at making the United States transition to 100% renewable energy complete by 2030. Stein has also proposed a reduction in the military budget by a third and the creation of a regional food systems based on sustainable organic agriculture.
On the Republican side, Evan McMullin, a beneficiary of the grounded “Never Trump” movement, failed to get on the ballot in 26 states before he’d even sent out his first campaign release. McMullin nonetheless tried to give disaffected conservatives an alternative to the Republican nominee who, he says, has tapped into “people’s darkest prejudices and deepest fears”.
McMullin’s best hope – and likely his only one – to make an electoral dent would require Trump’s departure from the race, though the nominee has made no overt sign that he wants to quit. “Like millions of Americans, I had hoped this year would bring us better nominees who, despite party differences, could offer compelling visions of a better future,” McMullin said in his announcement.
“Instead, we have been left with two candidates who are fundamentally unfit for the profound responsibilities they seek.”
But can they begin to make a difference? Only once in recent election cycles have third party candidates had any significant influence, when in 1992, Texan businessman Ross Perot took 18% of the vote, carving into the support for incumbent Republican George HW Bush and helping Arkansas governor Bill Clinton to victory. Some Democrats blamed third-party candidate Ralph Nader for delivering George W Bush the election in 2000, but the third-party candidate won a paltry 2.74% of the vote, and his supporters were split between Republicans and Democrats.
Johnson’s running mate, former Massachusetts governor William Weld, said he’d seen interest and fundraising pick up as Trump’s campaign has floundered. Their campaign recently reported a $1m one-week fundraising haul and has reported that more than 40,000 people have pledged to donate at least $15 to his campaign on 15 August.
But that was in a relatively tight race. With Clinton now leading Trump by double digits in some key battleground states, the impact of any third-party candidate could be limited.
“At the moment it doesn’t look like they can have much impact at all,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic adviser. “But if the race gets closer, they could throw it either way.”
Sheinkopf reasoned that this election has become more about personalities and less about what party leaders want. The long-term impact may be a significant shift in how people view Democrats and Republicans, he said. As it now stands, Stein, Johnson and McMullin could act as a convenient parking spot for voters disgusted with both candidates.
Earlier this month, a federal judge rejected a challenge brought by Johnson and Stein arguing that the bar for inclusion is set artificially high. Yet there are signs the ground could be shifting. Mike McCurry, now co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates and a former press secretary for Bill Clinton, hinted that a third podium might be needed.
“Some of our production people may have said, ‘Just in case, you need to plan out what that might look like,’’ McCurry told Politico. “We won’t know the number of invitations we extend until mid-September.”
Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group, a nonpartisan polling company, said there was broad support for including even minor candidates. “Polls show that voters think third party candidates should be included,” he said, “and in an election like this, where polls show a majority of voters dislike both main party candidates, there is a good reason to give them the opportunity to at least look at other options.”
But even Johnson and Stein were somewhat wistful about their prospects, casting themselves as agents of change who, at best, could represent the beginning of a break with the current two-party system.
“The biggest message is ‘consider us’ as a very, very viable alternative to this two-party system that has become so polarized that they’re not able to do anything,” Johnson has said.
Stein advanced a similar argument. “We’re having a political reorganization in this election because the Republicans are kind of falling apart,” she said, “and the Democrats have kind of split with a lot of the Bernie Sanders supporters just not happy with the alternative.”
She argued that it was by elections about “the lesser of two evils” that the country inherited many of its problems.
But first, the two have to get on TV.
“There’s no way I’m going to win the presidency if I’m not in the presidential debates,” Johnson said. “I do believe anything is possible given that right now, arguably the two most polarizing figures in American politics today are running for office.”
