Third Parties in Presidential Elections at Awkward Utopia

There’s a small issue that continues to annoy me and I thought I would write about it. Whenever the efficacy of a third party in presidential elections is challenged, people always point to Ralph Nader in 2000. This is, of course, very selective on the liberals’ parts. The reason why this case is always selected is because liberals want to undermine Bush’s election in any way that they can. First of all, and this is more of a side point, most Nader voters may not have even voted if he wasn’t running. These people are Green Party voters, for goodness sake (joking, joking). Scurrilous implications on my part aside, the better point is: why not ever mention any other example?

Take, for instance, 2000! In 2000, Pat Buchanan’s attempt for the Presidency got him enough votes that one could say cost Bush the following states: Oregon, New Mexico, Iowa, and Wisconsin. (This calculation does not take into account the Libertarian Party, which, as we know, trends around 2/3 Republican all things being equal.) In Oregon (7 electoral votes), Buchanan got 7,063 votes and Bush lost by 6,765 votes. In New Mexico (5 electoral votes), Buchanan got 1,392 votes while Bush lost by 366 votes. In Iowa (7 electoral votes), Buchanan gets 5,731 votes while Bush loses by 4,130 votes. Finally, Wisconsin (11 electoral votes) gave 11,379 votes to Buchanan while Bush lost the state by about 5,500. The final electoral college vote was 271 - 266, though if I recall, Gore should have had 267 but for a stray elector. Let’s say 271 - 267 then. Let’s take away Buchanan, thereby swinging OR, IA, NM, WI (30 combined EV) to Bush, and swing Florida (25 EV) to Gore (just for fun, even though Bush would’ve easily won Florida but for Buchanan). Bush suddenly doesn’t even need Florida, even though his lead would have increased there but for Buchanan, to win the Presidency! [ All data taken from CNN. ]

So why not mention this?

Surely, the main reason is bias, since most are completely unaware of this fact. But if a liberal actually thinks about it, they can respond: why don’t we take away both Buchanan and Nader and see where they stand? In this case, assuming most Nader voters actually vote if Nader isn’t in the race, then Gore would win the election handily. This seems true enough. But the Buchanan case is certainly valid.

More interestingly is that no one bothers to mention 1992, when Ross Perot led the polls at one point, before dropping out of the race, and then re-entered to finish with 20% of the popular vote. Reform Party voters were well-known to be mostly sympathetic to Republicans. See for yourself how much more Perot’s voters’ demographics resembled Republican demographics and also the party identification of Perot voters. Had Perot not run, it does not seem conceivable to me that Bill Clinton wins in 1992. Do you think Bush loses GA by 1% (13 EV), TN by 5% (11 EV), LA by 5% (9 EV), CO by 5% (8 EV), MT (3 EV) and NV (4 EV) by 2.5%, ME (4 EV) by 8%, NH (4 EV) by 1%, KY (8 EV) by 3%, OH (21 EV) by 2%, WI (11 EV) by 5%, MI (18 EV) by 7%? [ All data taken from here. ] That is a 114 EV swing from Clinton to Bush, resulting in a 282 - 256 victory for George H.W. Bush. I may be off by a few, but you get the point. We would have gotten a second term of Bush, Osama bin Laden would have been killed shortly after his first World Trade Center bombing, and all of history is changed.

End rant!

Awkward Utopia

Third Parties in Presidential Elections

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