Among all the reasons Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020 but Hillary Clinton didn\u2019t four years earlier, one looms especially large for the coming presidential election: the share of the third-party vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2016, 6% of all voters cast ballots for third-party and write-in candidates, with Libertarian Gary Johnson getting more than 3% of the national vote and Green Party nominee Jill Stein capturing more than 1%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in 2020, that proportion fell to 2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The difference effectively changed the threshold the major candidates needed to reach to win key battleground states \u2014 from 47% and 48% in 2016 to 49% and 50% in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That, Democrats say, made it easier for Trump to win in \u201916 but not in \u201920. And the numbers illustrate why Democratic groups \u2014 eyeing a possible, if not likely, rematch between Biden and Trump \u2014 want to keep the third-party vote share as small as possible, including moving to keep the well-financed third-party group No Labels off the ballot in battleground states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Comparing the results from 2016 and 2020, what stands out is that Trump\u2019s vote share (nationally, in key battleground states and in key counties) stayed virtually the same \u2014 even as he won one election and lost another. What changed is that Biden grew the Democratic Party vote share by 2 to 3 points across the board, while the protest vote for other candidates dropped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Take battleground Pennsylvania, for example: Trump defeated Clinton in the state in 2016, 48.2% to 47.5%. But as the third-party vote declined in 2020, Biden won it, 49.9% to 48.7%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The same situation played out in Wisconsin. Trump captured the battleground state in 2016, 47.2% to 46.5%. But in 2020, it was Biden 49.5%, Trump 48.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another way to look at the third-party effect: The 2020 NBC News Exit Poll found 5%<\/a> of national voters saying they cast ballots for third-party candidates in 2016, and those voters broke for Biden over Trump by more than a 2-to-1 ratio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That was in an election in which Biden beat Trump by just 20,000 votes in Wisconsin and by about 10,000 votes in Arizona and Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is no doubt at all that Stein and Johnson cost Clinton the election in 2016, and a credible third-party vote could do the same to Biden in 2024,\u201d said Matt Bennett, the executive vice president of public affairs at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group opposing No Labels\u2019 effort to enter next year\u2019s presidential contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But No Labels and other third-party groups say there should be more choices for voters, especially when polls show<\/a> supermajorities don\u2019t want either Biden or Trump to run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTwo-thirds of the public doesn\u2019t want the election we\u2019re probably going to get,\u201d said Ryan Clancy, No Labels\u2019 chief strategist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It all raises important questions for the 2024 presidential election: Will the size of the third-party vote be closer to 2016\u2019s? Will it look more like 2020\u2019s? And could that affect the outcome of another presidential election?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The strategists behind No Labels believe there is a hunger for an alternative to Biden and Trump, and they\u2019re spending $70 million to launch an independent unity ticket (featuring a Democrat and a Republican) that could have ballot access in all 50 states \u2014 and that could win, they say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting a non-major-party candidate on the ballot can be complicated, time-consuming and expensive. But the group already has ballot access in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado and Oregon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a poll No Labels commissioned and released in March<\/a>, 59% of registered voters nationwide said they would consider voting for a moderate independent candidate if the choices were Biden and Trump, including more than half of Democrats and Republicans, as well as 7 in 10 independents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s more, the No Labels poll found that in a three-person race, an unnamed moderate independent candidate gets support from 20% of all voters, compared with 33% for Trump and 28% for Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No Labels\u2019 leaders stress that if they don\u2019t have a path to victory, they ultimately won\u2019t put forward a 2024 ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They also dismiss complaints that their third-party bid would disproportionately take votes away from the Democratic ticket, saying their own polling showed an equal share of Democrats and Republicans supporting an unnamed moderate independent candidate over Biden and Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo sit where we are and say we know exactly how an independent ticket would impact a race, it\u2019s cherry-picking,\u201d said Clancy of No Labels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Democrats disagree, pointing to No Labels\u2019 own survey, which showed Trump\u2019s lead over Biden increasing from 1 point in a two-person contest to 5 points when it included that moderate independent candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And No Labels\u2019 strategists decry Democratic efforts to knock it off the ballot, such as in Arizona, where the state Democratic Party has sued to deny it ballot access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clancy said Democrats portray themselves as \u201cprotectors of democracy,\u201d but he argued that efforts to keep No Labels off the ballot \u2014 and limit the presidential choices to just two parties \u2014 runs contrary to democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEither you\u2019re for democracy or not,\u201d Clancy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Democrats opposed to No Labels argue that the third-party group has no chance of winning in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n‘Either you\u2019re for democracy or not’<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
‘This is one of the easiest ways for Donald Trump to become president’<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n