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.

    • originalfrozenbanana
      1·
      7 months ago

      Yeah you got it bucko, I can’t name any candidates I just link to 538 articles that you don’t read. Seriously just make your point already, stop edging me.

        • originalfrozenbanana
          1·
          7 months ago

          No, I can. I can point to the data in the article that shows that Manchin and west would benefit Trump when polled in 2023. I can point to data for progress showing that an “independent” candidate like Hogan would swing things for Trump. I can point to 2016 when fewer than 100k votes decided the election. I can use that to extrapolate out that the third party slate tends to benefit republicans. But my BROADER point is that you don’t actually give a shit, you could have googled this if you did, and you’ve been waiting for me to drop a name so you could determine precisely which bad faith, misguided, or incomplete argument against precisely that candidate you can pull out of your Rolodex of talking points.

          So please get to your fucking point already because if it’s what you said in your comment then the answer was for you to READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE AND USE GOOGLE all along. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you were just a lazy troll who wanted me to say a name instead of reading a name in an article, but maybe it’s simpler than that: did you actually think I couldn’t name a third party candidate?

          Can…can you not name one? Are you trying to get me to name one because you don’t know any? Is this a cry for help?