By Alex Seitz-Wald - NBC News
Many Americans aren't thrilled about any of the most popular presidential candidates in 2024 and say they want others. That discontent is paving the way for independent and non-party hopefuls to make their way.
Even if his chances of winning the White House are minimal, the idea of having several more candidates on the ballot could make for a close election and further complicate the divided picture of the American electorate.
That uncertainty is already worrying both parties, but especially Democrats, who fear that third-party candidates could ruin their election, as they say Green Party candidates did in 2016 and 2000.
However, experts acknowledge that it may be impossible to predict what will happen in a five- or six-candidate contest.
"Voters may be surprised at how many options they actually have," said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia. "It's going to make the polls even harder to decipher. It's a nebula added to the battlefield."
While minority-party candidates are nothing new, the ballot may be quite long next year, with well-known independents such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, plus the potential centrist candidacies of West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, and an effort backed by the No Labels group, in addition to the Green and Libertarian parties.
"This is a unique historical moment in which more than 60 percent of the population declares themselves willing to vote for a third party or an independent candidate," said Tony Lyons, editor of Kennedy's book and co-founder of a political action committee that has already raised millions to support the former Democrat.
Several recent polls show Kennedy's support at more than 19 percent, a record for a nonmajoritarian party candidate set by billionaire Ross Perot during his 1992 independent campaign, despite mostly negative coverage in the mainstream media, Lyons said.
"There's a lot of distrust with public officials and the media."
Cornel West during a Bernie Sanders campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Feb. 1, 2020.Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images file
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are deeply unpopular, as are the two major parties, with only a quarter of Americans saying they are excited about their likely rematch, while nearly three-quarters of independent voters add they would like more candidates to compete.
"For most voters, 2020 is an election they'd rather not have to relive," said Patrick Murray, who directs the nonpartisan Monmouth University Polling Institute. "The question is whether this discontent creates an opportunity for someone else."
The Last Independent Elected
Of course, Americans haven't elected an independent president since George Washington — Perot didn't receive a single Electoral College vote — and polls often exaggerate support for minority-party candidates.
Historically, about half of voters who tell pollsters they will support an alternative candidate end up going with a major-party candidate, fearing that their vote won't count.
"Voters don't support third parties on election night," says Jim Messina, who ran Barack Obama's successful 2012 re-election campaign.
"No third-party candidate has won a single electoral vote in more than 50 years. What they will do, instead, is siphon off enough votes in swing states to get Trump back into the White House. That would be a catastrophe," he said.
Both parties have struggled to keep their voters in the fold, with Republicans pushing Kennedy during his Democratic primary bid against Biden, and then backtracking when he declared himself an independent and polls showed they liked his conspiratorial populism.
Donald Trump Jr. has called Kennedy a "Democratic infiltrator," the Republican National Committee has repeatedly called him a "Democrat masquerading as an independent," and right-wing personalities have warned supporters not to be fooled by a candidate they had praised months earlier.
But Democrats are especially worried, with Trump's campaign manager Chris LaCivita saying, "All elements of a third-party nomination come out of (Biden's) coalition, not ours."
"A vote for anyone other than the Democratic nominee is a vote for Trump"
As seen by operators in both parties, Biden has a higher potential support ceiling than Trump. But achieving this essentially depends on forcing the president's anti-Trump "soft" supporters to opt for him instead of staying home or voting for another candidate.
Trump, on the other hand, has a lower ceiling but a higher floor of die-hard supporters than Biden, which could be ideal in a scenario with multiple candidates.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a campaign rally, Nov. 14, 2023, in Columbia, South Carolina. Meg Kinnard/AP file
"Candidates who aren't named Trump or Biden will likely surpass previous third-party campaign benchmarks in an unprecedented way," said Kurt Bardella, a former Republican operative who walked away for Trump.
"While I understand the frustration with the two-party system, the reality is that when it comes to the 2024 election, a vote for anyone other than the Democratic nominee is a vote for Donald Trump," he said.
The most recent high mark for minority party candidates came in 2016, when they collectively won 6% of the vote.
Green Party candidate Jill Stein got just 1 percent, but that included support in enough swing states for some Democrats to blame her for Trump's win, as they assume many of those votes for Stein, who represents liberal political views, would have gone to Hillary Clinton otherwise.
That view is widespread among Democrats, who have been especially concerned about the centrist group No Labels, which has the backing of large undisclosed donors and has the resources and means to carry out the monumental task of appearing on ballots across the country.
While Biden's campaign is focused on running against Trump, an informal coalition of pro-Biden groups has been formed to counter No Labels and other third-party campaigns, though the coordination of their work remains mostly informal, with no regular meetings, and so on.
"I think people still haven't realized how serious this risk is," said a Democratic strategist involved in the effort who requested anonymity to speak candidly. "It's a big deal. If we look at the risk that this poses, we will have no choice but to refute it forcefully and firmly."
It's unclear how many candidates will make it onto the ballot in most states and stay in contention until next November. What is clear, however, is that the list of contenders is adding the possibility of a surprise factor in the presidential race.