Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein and Libertarian Party nominee Chase Oliver haven’t received much attention in election reporting, but that could change on Tuesday.
The two candidates and other alternatives, including former candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., could tip the results in deadlocked battleground states and decide who wins the White House.
Ms. Stein is on the ballot in 39 states, including six of the seven battleground states expected to decide whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump wins the White House.
Ms. Stein has weathered sharp criticism from Democrats that she could spoil Ms. Harris’ chances, especially in Pennsylvania, a must-win battleground.
The European Greens, a coalition of left-wing environmentalist groups across Europe, is pressuring Ms. Stein to drop out of the race at the last minute and endorse Ms. Harris. They are terrified that her candidacy will help Mr. Trump’s campaign.
“We face a climate crisis that is worsening every year [and] climate policies require democratic institutions, which we fear would be dismantled if Trump is elected,” said the group, which includes Green parties from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland and Ukraine.
Ms. Stein said she wouldn’t drop out.
She is running as an alternative to Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris on an anti-war, anti-fossil-fuels platform. She promised to cut off military aid to Israel in its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip if a cease-fire deal is refused.
Her stance also threatens to draw pro-Palestinian voters away from Ms. Harris, who has lost ground on the left because of her support for Israel.
“The votes of the opponents of genocide are not being taken from Kamala Harris,” Ms. Stein told CBS News in Pittsburgh. “She already lost them.”
Mr. Oliver rejected accusations that he could be a spoiler. He is running as an anti-war, free-trade candidate who wants to lessen government intrusion. He condemned the two-party system that claims a vote for him is wasted.
“This is the establishment’s most successful lie in modern politics,” Mr. Oliver said in a campaign advertisement.
Polls show Ms. Stein drawing up to 2% of the vote in six swing states. The number may seem minuscule, but those polls predict she could siphon away enough votes from Ms. Harris to tip a close race to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump also faces threats from third-party candidates, including Mr. Kennedy, who quit the race in August and started campaigning for Mr. Trump.
Mr. Kennedy, who started as a Democratic Party candidate and became independent, failed to extricate himself from two swing state ballots. Despite his arduous public support of Mr. Trump, who has promised him a role in the Trump administration, Mr. Kennedy’s name remains on the ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin. He is expected to cannibalize some Trump votes.
Mr. Oliver is relatively unknown to voters, but he will appear on ballots in 48 states, including every battleground state. He attracted less than 1% in most polls, but he, Ms. Stein and Mr. Kennedy combined threaten to shake up the results.
“If a state is close enough,” nonpartisan pollster Ron Faucheux said, “their vote could determine who wins it.”
Polling in Wisconsin published Wednesday by Marquette Law School shows Mr. Kennedy’s lasting impact on the race.
A head-to-head matchup found that Ms. Harris led Mr. Trump by 50% to 49%. Her lead over Mr. Trump widened from 46% to 44% when the poll factored in all the candidates, particularly Mr. Kennedy, who picked up 5% of the vote.
The poll showed Ms. Stein with 1% of the vote, Mr. Oliver with 2% and independent Cornel West with 1%.
The Marquette poll found that nearly 10% of Wisconsin’s presidential vote could go to third-party and independent candidates.
David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, which conducts one of the most accurate polls in the country, predicted the impact of the alternative candidates could be “very big.”
In 2016, Ms. Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson garnered more votes in the three “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania than the margin of Hillary Clinton’s loss to Mr. Trump.
In 2020, Libertarian Jo Jorgensen, the only significant third-party candidate on the ballot, received more votes than the margin by which Mr. Trump lost in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin.
in 2000, Ralph Nader may have robbed Vice President Al Gore of a win in Florida. Ross Perot, who picked up nearly 20% of the popular vote in 1992, drew most of it away from President George H.W. Bush, who lost to Bill Clinton.
A Suffolk Poll released on Friday showed Pennsylvania deadlocked at 48.6% for Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris. The poll showed Ms. Stein and Mr. Chase with just 1% combined, but that could be enough to sway the race.
In 2020, Joseph R. Biden defeated Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania by 1.17 percentage points.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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