A new poll shows President Biden\u2002beating former President Trump\u2002in a 2024 presidential matchup, even if Sen. Joe Manchin\u2002(D-W.Va.) launches a third-party bid.
No Labels, a political group that has been pushing for a third-party bid, hosted an event Monday headlined by Manchin and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman\u2002(R), fueling speculation that the duo could appear as a bipartisan third-party ticket. The Monmouth poll released Thursday found if a Manchin-Huntsman ticket were to join the race as an alternative to Biden or Trump, only 2 percent of voters would definitely vote for the alternative, while 14 percent would probably vote for them.
Forty-four percent of voters would not vote for a Manchin-Huntsman ticket, and 31 percent said they probably would not. The poll noted the responses were not affected by whether Manchin or Huntsman was at the top of the ticket.
Biden\u2019s support dropped from 47 percent to 37 percent and Trump\u2019s dropped from 40 percent to 28 percent when a generic bipartisan ticket was offered as an alternative to Biden and Trump. When voters were asked about a potential Manchin-Huntsman ticket, Biden\u2019s support dipped from 47 percent to 40 percent and Trump\u2019s decreased from 40 to 34 percent.
The poll also asked voters who they would support if they believed a third-party candidate would be a \u201cspoiler.\u201d In the hypothetical scenario where voting for a third party could help elect Biden to the White House, 39 percent said they would vote for Biden, 37 percent said Trump and 20 percent would vote for the third party.
Inversely, when voting for a third party would help elect Trump, 43 percent of voters said they would support Biden, 33 percent would support Trump and 20 percent would vote for a third party. Overall, the poll found Biden would still have the most support even if a bipartisan ticket ran.
\u201cThe expectation that a third-party run could tip the scales toward Biden might produce a tighter contest than when the spoiler effect is seen to help Trump,\u201d said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, in a statement. \u201cAgain, these are hypotheticals. It\u2019s impossible to predict the impact of a third-party challenge until an actual campaign is underway, when the media\u2019s framing of it will play an important role.\u201d
The poll is based on responses from 840 registered voters collected between July 12-17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n