Spoilers or Trendsetters: Is 2024 Open to a Third Party POTUS Challenger?

Americans do a lot of things differently than lots of other places. One of those things is party politics.

Countries with parliamentary systems, like the United Kingdom or Canada, often have two major parties but those parties form governing coalitions to determine majorities and conduct business. An example of this would be in the United Kingdom in 2010 when David Cameron (Conservative Party) formed a coalition government with the centrist (by British standards) Liberal Democrats, in which Cameron served as Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister.

In the United States, the two major parties each command about a third of registered voters, making the independents a powerful voting bloc, but even so, the coalitions that parliamentary systems form after an election are in our system formed within the two major parties before an election. The Republican coalition includes social-issues conservatives (the Religious Right, as leftists like to term them), deficit and budget hawks, small-l libertarians (like me), small business people, entrepreneurs, an increasing share of blue-collar workers, Chamber of Commerce folks, and some defense hawks, among other groups. The Democrat coalition includes the "progressive" (as in, progress on the road to socialism) left, the government worker's unions, academia, and the coastal and urban elites. Usually, the independents are swayed towards one party or the other in general elections, depending on a wide variety of factors: The candidate, the economy, foreign affairs, and the like. Third parties have, with a few exceptions, received rather short shrift.

2024, according to Politico's Brittany Gibson, may be one of those exceptions.

2024 would seem to be ripe for a third-party candidate. The likely nominees of both major parties are deeply unpopular. Prominent independent contenders, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, have already announced bids. And the deep-pocketed group No Labels is eyeing its own potential yet-to-be named ticket.

“There is a huge opening for third parties,” said Bernard Tamas, a political scientist at Valdosta State University who studies third party movements in the United States and is the author of “ The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties.”

They almost certainly won’t win the White House. But in a close race between presumptive nominees Donald Trump and Joe Biden, a third-party candidate could easily siphon off enough votes in one state or another to tip the election. They could absolutely play “spoiler.”

This is known as "Peroting" the election. So let's take a look at the possibilities here.

First, the "No Labels" group is gunning to make themselves a name, carving that name out of the center of the American electorate. Their success there seems unlikely, as they don't even have a candidate yet. There was a flirtation with retiring moderate (for a Democrat) Senator Joe Manchin (WV), but that appears to have come to naught. Don't expect much from them for 2024.

Next, Cornel West has the potential to draw literally dozens of votes. Running as an independent after flirting with the People's Party and the Green Party, his far-left positions may draw some support, which will come exclusively from the left. But West is a fringe candidate and much of his support will come from socialists and far-left minority voters in the major urban areas, which will go reliably Democrat in the general election; as far as the 2024 Presidential election is concerned, West isn't really a factor.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is where the third-party possibilities get interesting. A reliable liberal Democrat for almost all of his well-documented adult life, he nevertheless has long been an anti-vaccine activist who may well draw some support from people who remember the COVID-19 vaccine controversy. But for Kennedy to draw a significant number of votes from Republicans and right-leaning independents, he would have to downplay or outright flip-flop on his former environmental and 'green energy' positions, raising minimum wages, and kicking the can down the road on rising crime rates in our major cities. When the general election season starts and people start paying a little attention, all of that is going to be dragged out and gone over.

But the primary party candidates have their problems, too. Joe Biden is bleeding support among some key demographics, and confidence in his ability to govern is in the basement.

The GOP, on the other hand, is dealing with their own issues. Peruse X/Twitter and you'll see their spectrum as well; there are always people who swear fealty to one candidate at the expense of any other, whether that candidate be Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, or Alfred E. Neuman. No matter who gains the GOP nod, there will be some voters who will make a protest vote for a third-party candidate or just stay home.

Even so, even after all the pixels spilled, when all the shouting is over, the 47th President is almost certainly going to be a Democrat or a Republican. Third-party candidates make for interesting discussions and can influence some key demographics, but when the rubber meets the road, they are spoilers, and nothing more.