Justin Amash’s announcement of a Libertarian presidential campaign sparked a chorus of horror and outrage from “Never Trump” Republicans and some Democrats desperate to defeat the president in November, fearing that his third-party bid could siphon votes away from Joe Biden and lead to a second term for President Trump.
But political analysts disagree on whether the 40-year-old Michigan congressman’s presence in the race would help Trump.
Election forecaster Rachel Bitecofer, a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center, argued in a Thursday op-ed that Amash’s candidacy may, in fact, help Biden.
“An Amash run may help buffer Democrats from what is sure to be a full-court press by Trump’s GOP to encourage disaffected Sanders voters to defect from Biden,” she wrote. “An Amash candidacy may serve to inoculate Democrats, because if Amash siphons votes off from the right, it could offset what is all but guaranteed to be some defection from progressives. If your party has a ‘spoiler’ candidate, you want your opponent to have one too.”
Or Amash might not have a substantial impact on the race at all.
“When all is said and done, Libertarian candidates have not really had much of an impact on races,” said independent pollster John Zogby. “They end up getting the obligatory 1% or 2%.”
Gary Johnson, former Republican governor of New Mexico, was the most successful Libertarian presidential nominee in history when he received 3.27% of the popular vote in 2016.
There is some reason to believe Amash would have some effect on vote tallies of the two major-party candidates, however, if not the final results.
“The presence of a minor party candidate can affect who wins an election,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and director of its elections research center. “My research on prior minor party candidates for president indicates that between 25% and 60% of their support is from people who would not have voted.”
In many cases, the majority of third-party support would have otherwise gone to other candidates, according to Burden. In a book chapter about the 2000 election, he found that Green Party candidate Ralph Nader and Reform Party nominee Pat Buchanan “got 30-40% of their voters from people who would have abstained otherwise.” Another one of his studies from 2005 found that “supporters of minor party candidates tend to back away from them when the major party contest appears to be more competitive.”
Those who fear Trump can find many real-world examples of elections where a third party candidate at least got enough votes to be a difference-maker.
In 2016, Trump won in Michigan over Hillary Clinton by around 10,700 votes, in Wisconsin by around 22,700 votes, and in Pennsylvania by about 44,300 votes, while Johnson had over 100,000 votes in each state. Had Clinton won the three states instead, she would have won the election. It is unclear, though, what portion of Johnson voters would have cast ballots for Clinton and Trump had he not been in the race.
Independent populist candidate Ross Perot won 19% of the popular vote in the 1992 presidential race and is often cited as a reason Republican President George H.W. Bush lost reelection to Democrat Bill Clinton.
“One of the best predictors of who supports minor parties is youth,” Burden said. “Young people disproportionately back minor parties because young voters have weaker attachments to the major parties. To the degree that Amash draws on younger voters, it is likely to harm Biden, as the Democrats fare much better among younger cohorts.”
While the potential is there for Amash’s candidacy to affect the final outcome of the race, his personal, national persona is another factor that will influence his vote share.
Amash’s soft-mannered style and positions could make it harder for him to draw left-leaning voters who deviated from voting Democratic in 2016. Unlike Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s 2012 and 2016 nominee, Amash is not known for openly using marijuana or other drugs, and he is anti-abortion.
“I don’t see him drawing young people’s votes, or disaffected non-white votes, or moderate republican votes of those who really want to defeat Trump,” Zogby said.
The Michigan congressman left the Republican party last year with a Fourth of July op-ed in which he “declared his independence.” His staunch stances sticking to libertarian-conservative principles drew praise and criticism from both sides of the aisle, depending on the circumstance, such as when he voted in favor of impeaching Trump.
Regardless of the threat, it is not set in stone that Amash will be the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee, though he is certainly the highest-profile candidate. Party delegates will choose a candidate at its national convention. That date is to be determined, as the party’s planned Austin, Texas, end-of-May event was abruptly canceled.
