A new poll suggests that Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is drawing more voters from former President Donald Trump than from Vice President Kamala Harris.
According to a Noble Predictive Insights survey released last week, Harris holds a narrow lead over Trump in a hypothetical three-way race. With Stein on the ballot, Harris’ lead expands, pointing to a potential spoiler effect similar to what many Democrats blamed Stein for doing to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
For Trump, the emergence of Stein as a potential spoiler may be a critical factor in battleground states, where even a small shift in votes could determine the outcome. For Harris, Stein’s candidacy could paradoxically provide an unexpected advantage, drawing votes from Trump and narrowing his pathway to victory.
Do you think all of those people who have been saying that third-party voters are going to destroy the US will be apologizing in the comment section here?
First past the post is a terrible design. Let’s rank choice and move on.
lol, pie in the sky right?
It is literally more likely for a socialist revolution to happen in the US than for us to use STV enough to choose the president that way.
But democrats believe in democracy!
.
Regardless of outcome, you’re playing with fire in our current voting system. Even if a few states did actually elect a third party, you could see no candidate reach 270 electoral votes and then it goes to the even more arcane vote done in the house of representatives (which each state gets a vote)
A very blue district in Hawaii sent a Republican (Charles Djou) to Washington in a special election with less than half the vote, because the two Democrats in the race refused to back down. If there were a ranked choice or other voting system than “plurality takes all”, he wouldn’t have won
Oh geez, really tightening up the narrative now. 3rd party voting in non-swing states is getting demonized.
Cripes. My point was our current system means your vote for the perfect candidate can put the candidate you disagree with most into office when one with much closer views to yours could have been elected instead. It has happened, and in a place where it really shouldn’t have.
That system should be changed for that reason, and until it is you should be very aware of unintended consequences of that vote.
So now that you’ve identified the problem I can only hope you’re actively building grassroots support to replace the current system instead of just posting online about how people should vote blue no matter what, right?
I see lots of problems in the world. Our voting system is flawed, income inequality is bananas, people still think Donald Trump won the election 4 years ago, our cities are very car-dependent, and plenty more. If I built a grassroots program for every issue I point out to every yahoo on the Internet, I wouldn’t have time to change my toddler’s diaper. If my posting online tells people to keep the cart behind the horse or reconsider their points of view (glad you seem to agree with me what the problem is!) I’ll call that a win on a smaller scale.
I know people who have small children and are still involved in socialist organizing.
Cool. Am I supposed to do that for every cause I believe in or just the ones you say I should?
Literally just target the root cause of the problems, capitalism. All these problems don’t exist in a vacuum.
Are you suggesting you don’t believe in RCV?
Just the ones you believe to be such a great problem that you’re recommending people vote for your preferences out of fear.
I understand juggling the current political hellscape with a child is nightmarish but building a movement behind a better political system would be the first step in allowing people to vote for better options and resolve the myriad of issues you’ve listed - until then saying to “keep the cart behind the horse” only means we’ll continue bickering in the backseat while the obviously broken two-party state drives us all off the edge.
And I get that between work and family finding time to be politically active can be challenging but I would hope you can find an hour or two a month to join your local RCV advocacy group and help create a better political environment for yours and everybody else’s children.