From Politico. The Washington Post has the original story.
More than two-thirds of Americans would consider voting for a third-party presidential candidate, while nearly half of all voters think a third-party is needed, a new poll shows…
The most likely to support the creation a third party? A majority of independents (61 percent), liberals (60 percent) and moderates (51 percent) said that a third party was necessary…
Lots of other interesting trend graphs at those last two links.
Yep, I remember that one.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/149678/Americans-Express-Historic-Negativity-Toward-Government.aspx
http://www.gallup.com/poll/149795/Republican-Democratic-Party-Images-Equally-Negative.aspx
Dearest Mister Johnson, “plz pass the Excedrin”
What if Polls were rigged ?
What if electronic voting was rigged ?
Paper Ballots and earnest Poll Watching needed !
Gary Johnson said. “I have issues with the extreme right of the Republican party. I do. I always have,” he added. “And I have issues with the extreme left of the Democrat party. I always have. But I don’t know if I really have issues with what you’d call the extreme segment of the Libertarian party.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/20/gary-johnson-mickey-mouse-barack-obama-mitt-romney_n_1219290.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false
Gary Johnson is the BEST third choice SO FAR…………..
Also, I’m not sure why anyone assumes Bloomberg will run himself for President.
It’s possible, but there are a number of other possibilities as well, and if they need access to his money he could run for VP.
He didn’t say anything that would mess up the Americans Elect plan.
Tom said it all @9 above.
http://ontheissues.org/Mike_Bloomberg.htm
vs
http://ontheissues.org/Barack_Obama.htm
They have Obama more on the left than Bloomberg.
#7- While Bloomberg may well be “arguably to the left of Obama at this point”, that still leaves him in the “center”. I was speaking to a friend the other day about a potential Romney-Obama contest and suggested that the Obama people might well argue against Romney because “we already have a liberal Republican in the White House”. Centrists all, lean a little this way, lean a little that way!
Seen by whom?
Most Americans who are not political junkies or residents of the tristate area don’t know who he is.
Nothing a few (or more than a few) million dollars of TV ads and several hundred TV interviews can’t fix, especially if he follows them up with a good debate performance.
RedPhillips // Jan 23, 2012:
“I don’t buy this. People always support the idea of a third party in general but not when they actually have to go into the voting booth. ” [Lake: ditto!]
I agree that Bloomberg has missed his best year.
He is less popular now, no longer new or interesting.
He’s been around long enough to look more like the establishment and less like an outsider.
He is part of the hated, mistrusted rich 1% and more people will dismiss him out of hand.
He’s not only old hat, he’s a rich old hat.
Why would he do any less well this year?
Looking over his positions he seems like a centrist to me also.
If AE sends it to the House, advantage Republicans.
But, if the Republicans split in 2 or 3 – for example Romney going AE, Gingrich as NSGOP and possibly also Paul as LP – AE could conceivably win in the House.
Real alt parties have little money, extreme positions, and no-name candidates.
Perot ’92 was the closest to what AE will do this year, but him dropping out and in cost him the level of support that would have kept him in the horserace, thus he faced the usual wasted vote problem.
Americans Elect can circumvent that problem and actually win.
I agree with the consensus here: this poll is basically sh*t. If people REALLY wanted to vote for a third party, then they would vote for third parties. They never do.
There are a lot of reasons why third parties poll high prospectively and bomb in the real world.
Most of those reasons come down to two:
1) 66% of voters would consider a third party. 1% would consider a third party that looks like X, another 1% would consider a third party that looks like Y, etc. They’re all considering a third party for different reasons. So “generic third party” polls high, each specific third party, not so much.
2) “Wasted vote.” They may be upset with “their” current major party, but not so upset that they’ll risk the other major party winning.
I think they can do a lot better than ’92.
Perot was leading before he dropped out and back in.
By the time of the election Perot lost much of his support because he was clearly behind, and that was due to the flakiness he displayed when he dropped out and in.
This time, maybe not.
Americans Elect could actually win.
The support fades away because as elections approach alt parties suffer from the “wasted vote” squeeze. If American Elect spends at the level of the older parties, polls well enough to get in the debates and does well in the debates, and then polls competitively with Obama and the Republican, they may not have the “wasted vote” problem.
First of all, I don’t buy this. People always support the idea of a third party in general but not when they actually have to go into the voting booth. Just like they say they will support a third party candidate early in the polling season but that support evaporates at election time.
The good news here is that this probably means there is a solid base for easing ballot access barriers. And while the internals of the polls need to be examined, on the surface this doesn’t bode well for ideological third parties. The greatest percentage of support comes from independents who likely think the major parties are too “extreme.” This might bode well for Americans Elect.