A new nationwide poll by FairVote reveals that most voters who supported a third party or independent candidate in the 2024 presidential election would have preferred Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris in a two-way race. The poll also shows strong support among these voters for adopting ranked-choice voting.
The poll, produced by FairVote in partnership with Lake Research and released last week, surveyed 538 voters nationwide, excluding residents of Alaska, Maine, and New York. The participants included supporters of Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein, Libertarian Chase Oliver, and independents Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Cornel West. The survey was conducted online from November 7 to 17 and has a given margin of error of ±4.2%.
According to topline data, the poll explored three main topics: which candidate these voters would have chosen if limited to Trump or Harris, why they opted to support a third party or independent candidate, and their opinions on ranked-choice voting as an alternative voting system. Among the respondents, 36% reported voting for Stein, 34% for Kennedy, 28% for Oliver, and 2% for West. Notably, due to the small sample size of West voters, their preferences were not analyzed separately and were only included in aggregated data.
If forced to choose between Trump and Harris, 55% of respondents indicated they would have supported Trump, compared to 27% for Harris. An additional 13% said they would not have voted, and 5% remained unsure.
Stein voters were the most likely to favor Trump, with 67% choosing him over Harris (21%). Similarly, 60% of Kennedy voters and 36% of Oliver voters preferred Trump. No subgroup of voters expressed a stronger preference for Harris, although Oliver supporters came closest with 31% followed by Kennedy voters at 27%.
The survey also found broad familiarity with and support for ranked-choice voting among these voters. A substantial 87% of respondents were familiar with the system, and 86% expressed support for its adoption. Only 12% had neither heard of the system nor supported its implementation. Crosstab data comparing candidate preferences with ranked-choice voting support was not included.
When asked about their reasons for supporting a third party or independent candidate, 40% cited shared values and principles as their primary motivation. A similarly close 39% said they wanted to support having more choices on the ballot. Since the question allowed multiple answers, some overlap between these two categories exists, though the extent was not specified.
Other motivations included making a statement in favor of third party and independent candidates (29%), intentionally rejecting both Trump and Harris (25%), and simply believing that neither major-party candidate best represented their views (24%). Additionally, 15% said they already knew the outcome in their state and therefore felt free to vote for a third party or independent candidate.
FairVote also released another survey earlier this month of 1,000 voters who participated in the 2024 election. It found that 47% felt they had voted for the lesser of two evils in at least one race during the election, with the sentiment being highest among Asian Americans (54%), millennials (53%), and self-identified independents (50%).
Not too surprising, given how many people who at other times usually vote libertarian actually voted for Trump.
Note that for Oliver voters Trump and Harris were separated by not much more that the margin of error.
A fundamental failure of the ranked-choice movement has been pairing it with jungle primaries. All of the states with RCV on the ballot had a Top X jungle primary arrangement, and they all failed. The recall of Alaska’s Top 4 system came within a hair’s breadth of passing and proponents say they will try again. The only places where RCV passed, in DC and in some local efforts, was where it was not tied to a jungle primary.
A shame they didn’t poll Terry voters. Preferring Trump to Harris is obviously a given. But I’d like to have seen the breakdown of how Terry voters’ view RCV and why – especially those, if any, that are against it.