The more candidates in the race, the better for Donald J. Trump, supporters say. And in a tight presidential contest, a small share of voters could change the result.

This works because almost all the US uses first-past-the-post elections for the Presidential general election. So you get outcomes like this:

Scenario 1:

Biden: 10 votes

Trump: 9 votes

Kennedy/Stein/West: 0 votes

Biden wins the state

Scenario 2:

Biden: 9 votes

Trump: 9 votes

Kennedy/Stein/West: 1 vote

Tied vote, decided by game of chance/lawsuit

Scenario 3:

Biden: 8 votes

Trump: 9 votes

Kennedy/Stein/West: 2 votes

Trump wins the state

This is why you see huge financial support from Republican billionaires for third party candidates who have no chance of winning.

      • Atyno@dmv.socialEnglish
        9·
        7 months ago

        It kinda makes them look even more short sighted tbh. Like yeah, you can look at “there’s a few polls where he takes from Biden” and call it a day, but it’s kinda missing the fact he’s lost a lot of relevance already with no signs of stopping.

        It’s kind of a catch 22: he’s stealing votes from the low-info pool, but at the same time if he’s not defined at all he’ll make no impact by election day. Elevating him can fix that, but that risks those low info voters realizing what they’re getting into and then start biting into Trump’s numbers as expected.

    • silence7@slrpnk.netOP
      184·
      7 months ago

      They don’t need that. All they need is to take more votes from Biden than they do from Trump. And the the polling makes it very clear that the 3rd party candidates as a group do exactly that. The benefit is something around a 3 percentage point advantage for Trump with the 3rd party candidates on the ballot vs not.

      • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works
        14·
        7 months ago

        Yeah idk, I haven’t heard any Dems say they’re going to break from Biden for someone like RFK, the dude is an anti science nut job and at least my circles see right through it. I have heard trumpists say they’d consider him if trump ended up in jail or whatever though. 🤷

        Hopefully this strategy backfires spectacularly.

        • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
          10·
          7 months ago

          Honestly, the bigger issue for dems has always been low enthusiasm leading to a lot of voters just refusing to vote.

          • Asafum@feddit.nl
            1·
            7 months ago

            It’s almost as if more people need to vote in the primaries

            Yeah it’s more difficult with an incumbent because the Smarter Than You DNC decides a primary is bad, but if we actually voted in numbers then instead of just allowing the old people who actually vote in primaries to decide who is the one running, we’d actually have a candidate people can be excited for.

          • lennybird@lemmy.worldEnglish
            91·
            7 months ago

            Republicans have done this for decades to great success. Usually they’ll push a wedge-driving issue with online operatives sometimes posing as grandstanding leftists who will vote 3rd party, independent, etc.

            It rarely works for Dems, but Libertarians did screw over Trump to some extent last election thanks to Jojo

          • thefartographer
            2·
            7 months ago

            “Shit, Rita, that’s what we’re getting paid to do, not what we’re getting paid to say!”

      • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
        411·
        7 months ago

        This is ‘splitting the vote’ nonsense. We wouldn’t support your candidate if they were the only person on the ballot.

      • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
        212·
        7 months ago

        This is ‘splitting the vote’ nonsense. We wouldn’t support your candidate if they were the only person on the ballot.