Third parties don’t have the profile they had in 2016, but they may still spoil a handful of competitive Senate races deciding control of the chamber next Congress.
A third-party candidate is poised to advantage the Republican nominee in Alaska, while in South Carolina, he will likely benefit the Democrat. And all this is taking place in an election cycle in which Democrats only need to gain three or four seats for a Senate majority.
Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is in a lean GOP contest against Democrat-backed independent Al Gross, according to the Cook Political Report.
Sullivan and Gross, an orthopedic surgeon and commercial fisherman, have routinely been polled within low single percentage points of one another. But those surveys have largely been head-to-head match-ups. Very few pollsters have asked respondents for their opinion of the Alaskan Independence Party’s John Wayne Howe.
A New York Times and Siena College poll released last Friday, for instance, found Sullivan had an 8-point lead over Gross, 45% to 37% of the vote, respectively. But Howe had a whopping 10% support, mainly to Gross’ detriment. Another 7% were undecided.
For University of Alaska Anchorage political science professor Forrest Nabors, though, the Alaskan Independence Party, “famous for favoring secession,” didn’t have a strong following. And most “libertarian-conservatives” were satisfied with Sullivan, he said.
“The real question is how many Alaskans have drifted left. Gross draws from the left, and Alaskans don’t see him so much as a libertarian or moderate so much as an alternative on the left to Sullivan,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Meanwhile, in South Carolina, a third-party candidate could hurt incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Graham’s race against Democrat Jaime Harrison is closer than Sullivan and Gross’s, rated as a toss-up by multiple election prognosticators.
The rivals have been more regularly polled, given the 17-year senator’s profile as an ally of President Trump’s and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Polling is tight between the pair with and without the Constitution Party’s Bill Bledsoe. But Harrison believes having Bledsoe on the ballot is a boon, despite the fact Bledsoe, a veterinarian, dropped out and endorsed Graham this month.
A second New York Times and Siena College published last Thursday had Graham at 46%, Harrison at 40%, and Bledsoe at 4%, weeks after Bledsoe bowed out of contention. Another 8% were undecided.
Harrison has invested heavily in TV, print, and digital ads boosting Bledsoe and his ultra-conservative credentials after a record-breaking third financial quarter fundraising haul. Harrison’s move is aimed at siphoning enthusiasm from Graham because many South Carolina voters consider him to be a milquetoast Republican, according to Robert Jeffrey, a Wofford College government professor. That lowers the threshold for victory for Harrison, an ex-teacher, legislative aide, and lobbyist.
The narrator of Harrison’s new 30-second spot warns, “Lindsey Graham’s changed after 25 years in Washington and millions from special interests, but beware: Right-wing Constitution Party candidate Dr. Bill Bledsoe is also on the ballot.”
Hmmm… Jaime Harrison has a new ad airing in Charleston today.
“But beware, right-wing Constitution Party candidate Bill Bledsoe is also on the ballot. Bledsoe opposes all abortions and Bledsoe supported Trump from Day One…Bledsoe’s too conservative for South Carolina.” pic.twitter.com/rW4rLQDq3o
— Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) October 17, 2020
Harrison has supplemented his ads with interviews, first softly in a summer sit-down with the New York Times and then more loudly last week during an MSNBC appearance.
“I want to make sure that everybody who votes,” he told the Associated Press last weekend, “gets to understand who’s on the ballot and what their position is.”
Jeffrey, the professor, said Harrison’s strategy was risky because it could mobilize Republicans against him.
“That’s an old tactic, to get a third-party candidate on the ticket to take votes away from your opponent. Whether it works or not is another issue,” he said. “It is cynical. I don’t know how gullible voters are.”
“The Democrats want to beat Lindsey, so I guess they don’t mind,” he added. “There’s anger in terms of the Republican base.”
Joanna Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, was confident her candidates would win without third-party interference.
“Dan Sullivan and Lindsey Graham will be reelected to continue representing the people of Alaska and South Carolina,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman said. “Jamie Harrison knows he won’t win his race on merit, so he’s resorting to desperate political tricks in the hopes of trying to mitigate his inevitable loss.”
Third parties have long tinkered with vote totals at the margins, even if they’ve historically over-performed in polling.
Just last August, the Supreme Court declined to hear Republican Montana Secretary of State Cory Stapleton’s emergency petition regarding Montana’s Green Party. Stapleton had sought to reverse a lower court’s decision siding with Democrats who wanted to keep Green Party candidates off their state’s ballots. The Montana GOP had funded a $100,000 Green Party signature-gathering effort and hadn’t disclosed the spending.
And the stakes are generally high elsewhere on the electoral map too.
Alabama Democratic Sen. Doug Jones is on the precipice of losing his seat, according to the Cook Political Report, as are Republican Sens. Martha McSally of Arizona and Cory Gardner of Colorado.
Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, as well as Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa, Susan Collins of Maine, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, all Republicans, join Graham and Daines in the toss-up column.
The fight for Republican Sens. Pat Roberts of Kansas and John Cornyn of Texas’ seats lean GOP. And Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is in a lean-Democratic skirmish.
