Democrats are paying attention to third-party candidates this year to avoid a repeat of 2016.
Former President Donald Trump won his first White House race with help from third-party candidates who, Democrats believe, siphoned off votes from Hillary Clinton. Four years later, when there were no viable alternatives, President Joe Biden was victorious. An outcome Democrats want to do everything they can to replicate.
Trump was elected president over Clinton while losing the popular vote despite nearly 8 million voters casting their presidential ballots for someone other than the two major party nominees. The largest third-party disrupters were Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, who gathered nearly 4.5 million votes, and Jill Stein of the Green Party, bringing in about 1.5 million voters. Around 2 million other voters did not support any major candidate.
With less than eight months remaining until the general election, the Biden campaign is switching up its strategy to defeat third-party candidates. The Democratic National Committee hired Lis Smith, a veteran operative who’s advocated candidates such as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in 2020, to assist in communications efforts as part of their anti-third-party strategy, per NBC News.
Opposition research and legal challenges are among the DNC’s maneuvers to thwart third-party candidates, including independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from taking votes away from the incumbent. This month, the DNC filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, accusing Kennedy of illegally coordinating with a super PAC, American Values 2024, to get ballot access in several states.
A team led by Mary Beth Cahill and Ramsey Reid, two veteran Democratic operatives, has begun issuing aggressive rebukes of Kennedy as he gains ballot access across the country. Kennedy is reportedly considering New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, a fellow anti-vaccine proponent, as his running mate, along with former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.
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“The Three Stooges reunion no one was asking for,” Cahill said in a statement following the news of Kennedy’s potential vice presidential picks. “It’s no surprise this is the shortlist considering the conspiracy theorist doing the choosing.”
Third Way, a center-left Democratic group, filed complaints against the super PAC backing Kennedy to secretaries of state in Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan. The group has been campaigning against No Labels, the organization moving forward with a bipartisan unity ticket for the 2024 presidential election, warning the ticket will boost Trump over Biden.
