Even after an arrest warrant, a temporary running mate and a major foreign policy gaffe on national television, the motley crew of alternative presidential candidates still appears to be in better position than any third party or independent candidate was four years ago.
And their mistakes might even help them in the end.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s high unfavorable ratings have presented an unique opportunity this year for Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, the Green Party’s Jill Stein, and independent candidate Evan McMullin. A series of unforced errors may end up hurting their respective chances of making the making the presidential debate stage and making a dent in the popular vote, but it’s also given them a chance to inject some much-needed national attention to their insurgent campaigns.
Stein was all too happy to try to turn lemons into lemonade, after North Dakota police issued a warrant for Stein’s arrest on Wednesday. Stein spray-painted the words, “I approve this message” on a bulldozer at a construction site in North Dakota, which caught the attention of law enforcement.
The Stein campaign did not appear too concerned about the bad news, and distributed multiple press releases alerting reporters to Stein’s alleged misdeeds. The Green Party also does not seem to think the potential imprisonment of its nominee is the biggest hurdle to Stein appearing on the debate stage.
“The obstacle to Dr. Stein’s admission to the debates is the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is run by leaders from the Democratic and Republican parties,” said Scott McClarty, the Green Party’s media coordinator, when asked about the criminal charges’ effect on Stein’s bid. “The CPD has rigged the debate rules to privilege the Democratic and Republican candidates and exclude others. Polls continue to show that most of the public want Dr. Stein and Gary Johnson to participate in the debates.”
The Commission on Presidential Debates set a 15-percentage-point polling threshold in select polls for the candidates to appear on the presidential debate stage this fall. Stein is polling around 3 percentage points nationwide, according to Real Clear Politics’ average of polls.
Johnson is polling closer to the threshold needed to make the debate stage, at nine percentage points in Real Clear Politics’ national average, and 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney said this week he hopes to see the Libertarian nominee on the debate stage this fall.
But Johnson exposed his vulnerability on foreign policy by failing to identify Aleppo, a city at the center of the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis, in a nationally televised interview on Thursday. In subsequent comments about the miscue, Johnson said it was “absolutely” a big flap and added, “I have to get smarter.”
By the end of the day, however, he boldly suggested he would likely make similar mistakes in the future, and argued that it proved him to be human.
It’s not yet clear whether that mistake will hurt or help Johnson, but the Libertarian Party indicated it thought the talk about Aleppo was a distraction from the issues that voters care about most.
“It’s the policies, not the geographic trivia, that matter,” said Wes Benedict, Libertarian Party executive director, when asked whether Johnson’s remark would effect his chances of making the debate stage. “The people who care whether or not Johnson knows how to find Aleppo on a map are the same people who care more about which email account Hillary [Clinton] used, as opposed to what Hillary’s actual foreign policies are. Gary Johnson has a great foreign policy of non-interventionism that applies to Aleppo and everywhere else.”
Independent candidate Evan McMullin, who’s running as an anti-Donald Trump Republican, has less of a chance at making the debate stage. But if he appears opposite Trump and Clinton this fall, he may have difficulty explaining why he named a running mate he appears to have no intention of keeping.
McMullin has named a “placeholder” running mate, Nathan Johnson, to qualify for state ballots. Getting rid of Nathan Johnson will be no easy matter, and McMullin’s team has offered several options on how to do so.
“Mr. McMullin’s electors may simply vote for the person that Mr. McMullin selects as his running mate [regardless of the name appearing on the ballot],” the McMullin team wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. “Even if that was not an option and Evan wins the White House, Vice President Johnson may simply resign. Section 2 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment provides the mechanism for President McMullin to then nominate a replacement.”
If the next 60 days look like the last seven days, the alternative candidates to Trump and Clinton may sink any chance they have of making the debate stage or effecting the outcome of the election. But Stein and Johnson are still better situated now than they were four years ago.
In 2012, both Johnson and Stein were running as their respective party’s nominees. Stein notched under half-a-million votes nationwide, 0.36 percent of the popular vote, according to the Federal Election Commission. Already at 3 percentage points nationwide, Stein has benefited from disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporters and progressives defecting from the Democratic Party. She may still have room to grow.
Johnson has likewise benefited from former Sanders fans, and has courted anti-Trump Republicans, too. He earned more than 1.2 million votes in 2012, 0.99 percent of the popular vote, according to the FEC. The Libertarian nominee is poised to eclipse that mark in November, and a spot on the debate stage could raise his name recognition among the general electorate.
Johnson and Stein remain long-shot insurgent candidates, but it looks unlikely that they will end their campaigns anytime soon.
“If someone had a gun to your head, would you vote for Hillary or Trump?” ABC’s Joy Behar asked Johnson on Thursday.
“I’d let it go off,” Johnson answered, while mimicking shooting himself with a gun.
