The myth at the heart of a 3rd party presidential bid

Candidates matter.

(West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin)

New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu was asked over the weekend about the possibility of a third party presidential bid in 2024.

“There’s an opportunity there like never before,” said Sununu. “It would have to be the right candidate. It has to be somebody very energizing, positive.”

Look, I get the basic thinking here. Poll after poll shows that voters don’t really want a Trump-Biden rematch. They view both men as fundamentally weak— Biden due to his age, Trump due to his, um, corruption — and regularly tell pollsters they would like other options. The idea of a re-run of the 2020 campaign is unappealing, at best.

Which primes the pump — in theory — for a third party candidate to emerge, an alternative to the stale offerings put forth by the two major parties and someone who could shake up the presidential race.

After all, who wouldn’t want a candidate who is “very energizing” and “positive” to vote for in the presidential race. Sounds amazing!

Like I said, it all sounds good. But the Sununu line of thinking is based on a very common myth about third party candidates.

The myth is this: Polling that suggests that people would be open to voting for a third party candidate is tantamount to voters actually, you know, voting for a third party candidate.

Start here: Ask 10 of your friends if they would be willing to vote for a third party candidate for president and I would bet that 7 or 8 of them say they would.

Now, ask those 7 or 8 to describe their perfect candidate — on the issues. My guess is that those answers would be ALL over the map. Some would want a candidate who was going to lower taxes. Or fight climate change. Or change the makeup of the Supreme Court. Or one of a myriad of other issues.

The point is that no two peoples’ issues would likely be exactly the same. What I want my third party candidate to focus on probably isn’t exactly what you want your third party candidate to focus on.

Now, ask those same 7 or 8 friends who, specifically, they want to be the candidate. Like, a name. Of a current politician or businessman or whatever.

Again, my educated guess is that they name a whole lot of different people. Some might pick a business tycoon like Jaime Dimon. Some might opt for West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. Or former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. Or other names I am not even thinking about.

The point, again, would be the lack of unanimity in their picks.

Which gets us to the nub of the problem: The idea of a third party candidate is much more appealing than the reality of a third party candidate.

The reality of ANY candidate — pick your favorite name — is that they would be a human. And, therefore, would have both strengths and weaknesses. Some of their views might be right up your alley while others would totally turn you off. No actual candidate would be a fit for your exact dream of a third party candidate.

We’ve seen this play out before. Every four years, there is talk of how this — finally — is the moment when the country gets its wish of a credible third party candidate. And, every four years that effort stumbles on the same thing: The inability to unite behind a candidate who represents all of the disparate interests in the country.

The most famous of all of these efforts came in 2012 when a group called Americans Elect spent $35 million(!) working on ballot access for a third party candidate.

The one problem they failed to solve for was — you guessed it — a candidate. To pick the candidate, the group held a national online primary in which a candidate had to win 10,000 votes nationally — at least 1,000 votes from 10 different states. (Americans Elect liked to boast that they had over 400,000 online delegates.)

But, no candidate was able to get that much support! (The closest was former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer with almost 6,000 votes.)

The movement rapidly dissolved.

And so it has gone — over and over again — for these sort of third party efforts.

While everyone likes to throw out Ross Perot as proof of concept that third party bids can work, I would note that a) Perot lost and b) 1992 was 30+ years ago.

The last third party bid worth mentioning before that? Probably John Anderson in 1980. But he only won 6.6% of the vote!

That history, of course, doesn’t stop the idea of a third party candidate emerging every four years. And I suspect we still have many months to endure the coverage of the possibility that this time is really and truly different.

But, be smart: The reality of third party candidates has NEVER matched the ideal pushed by those behind the quadrennial efforts. Elections are about people — and people, all people, have weak spots and worts. And it’s hard to agree on which weak spots and worts everyone can live with, and which they can’t.

Until a third party groups solves that problem (spoiler alert: they won’t) then you would be wise to view all of these efforts with a healthy dose of skepticism.