‘Third party influence’ to have major impact on outcome of election

A third-party ballot has the potential to spoil the outcome of the November election, political experts have warned.
Despite dropping out of the race and endorsing Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will still remain on several ballots including in at least two key swing states, Michigan and Wisconsin, after his eleventh-hour drop out in late August proved difficult at best and unlawful at worst to accommodate.
This proves particularly worrisome because the election is projected to be a close race as Trump and Kamala Harris are polling neck-in-neck in battleground states, which means RFK Jr. will be taking away critical votes from a primary party candidate.
Already, RFK Jr.’s ballot is causing problems in a key swing state, North Carolina, after its Supreme Court ruled it has to destroy and reprint millions ballots to accommodate his last-minute withdrawal, which he didn’t officially file for in the state until five days after deadline and four days after suspending his campaign.
This may particularly affect mail-in voters living out of state, including service members overseas, which goes against federal statutes.
The likelihood of a third-party ballot altering the election is not implausible as it affected the outcome of a US election not so long ago, said Jo Freeman, a prolific feminist author with a PhD in political science, to the Daily Express US.
Infamously, during the 2000 election, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader cost Democrat Al Gore the election by a mere 237 votes in Florida.
Exit polls after the election revealed most people who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore had they been forced to pick between the two primary party candidates.
“If Nader wasn’t on the ballot in 2000, Gore would have been elected,” she said. “So little things can have big effects.”
The trauma of the 2000 election led many Democrats to panic over bombshell Bernie Sanders potentially threatening the outcome of the 2016 election.
Now, political analysts are predicting the election may have a similar outcome to these previous elections involving third-party candidates.
“[RFK Jr.] is well aware of the importance that third parties can have on a very close election,” Freeman says of the descendant of Democratic family royalty, who expressed feeling “betrayed” after he endorsed Trump.
“In a close election, which this is, third parties can have effect,” Freeman explains. “Mini recessions and economic developments can have an effect. Turnouts can have an effect.
“That’s why nobody’s going to predict anything. It’s too close to call,” she adds, warning: “We may not see it until the election.”
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There was widespread panic among the Democratic party during the 2016 election as a result of the consequential 2000 election, which led to a two-term Republican presidential reign under George W. Bush.
One of many calls for “Bernie-or-Bust” voters to cast a ballot for Clinton from the time reads: “Like Gore, Hillary Clinton isn’t the left’s ideal candidate. But, barring a mathematical miracle, she’s our nominee. And, in what promises to be a tight general election, she’s going to need every vote she can get.”
“The longer Sanders stays in the race, the more Hillary’s negatives grow, and the more cash and attention she peels away from her general election efforts.
“To the Bernie voters who are disgusted with the process and disillusioned with the Democratic nominee, I hear you. But if you plan to stay home, defect to a third party candidate, or vote Trump in November, think back to the fall of 2000.
“It only took 100,000 ideological purists in one state to give our country away to a know-nothing nightmare of a president.”
Sanders, the runner-up, ultimately suspended his campaign and endorsed Clinton at the Democratic National Convention.
While Clinton won the popular vote, she did not secure enough delegates in the electoral college in some key battleground states
Freeman explained the 2016 election had unusually low Democratic voter turnout and exceptionally high Republican voter turnout, meaning many likely Democratic voters stayed home in those battleground states while men, in particular, who usually don’t vote came out for Trump.
Many still blamed Sanders as a reason for Clinton’s demise, though a research paper from the nonpartisan Center for Politics argued there isn’t “any compelling reason to think that Sanders somehow cost Clinton the election among people who didn’t vote for him.”
“He behaved no different than past defeated candidates for nomination (and was certainly more supportive than the candidates that Trump beat) and refused to turn himself into a victim after the DNC hack.”