this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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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.

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[–] Rapidcreek 27 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Junior is not going to get that many Dem votes. He's clearly MAGA, or at least MAGA adjacent

[–] stanleytweedle 22 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

They're going after formerly reliable Republican votes that have had enough of Trump but don't really want to vote for Biden.

Those are very reliable voters and they don't want them staying home or voting for Biden. So they give them a shitty third-party candidate so they won't vote for Biden and still show up for the down ballot Republicans. Might take a few potential votes from Biden but that's only half the goal.

[–] almar_quigley 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah but he’s as fringe as trump just in different ways. Plus it’s the opposite of what they think will happen with the dem vote. Republicans who would otherwise vote Biden or stay home will hear Kennedy and think liberal. But near 0 dems will fall for the same trick.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

But near 0 dems will fall for the same trick.

People who are paying attention to the news, sure. But a lot of people don't. And that's who they're trying to reach. So it's important to tell people what's going on.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

His campaign is built around on attracting low-information voters, and he has a ton of money to do just that — Kennedy's vice-presidential pick is the former wife of a Google founder who broke up with him after allegedly sleeping with Musk.

[–] Theprogressivist 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Which still only appeals to MAGA supporters.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

The Kennedy family name is something that has meaningful appeal to people who aren't like that and who don't know anything else. Put a bunch of money into ad campaigns emphasizing that over any actual policy position, and he may well peel off some votes from people like that.

[–] pjwestin 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

That's not entirely true. There is one proven left-leaning group that can be drawn in by MAGA talking points, and that's the Antivax moms. During the height of the pandemic, QAnon influencers were pretty effective at getting the cruchy-granola-crystal-healing-antivax moms into Trump. The guys at the QAA Podcast covered it really well, but the indoctrination path was basically: The Vaccine is Bad-> The Pandemic is Fake/Overblown-> Face Masks Actually Help Child Traffickers ->You Know Who's Fighting Traffickers?Trump! Anyway, if an Antivax message can get these folks to support Trump, it can get them to support RFK.

[–] Ghostalmedia 5 points 7 months ago

People need to start looking at the polling around this. RFK is more of a threat than people realize.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4568220-biden-trump-kennedy-polling/amp/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

“Only the other side will vote for this third party” is the constant refrain of someone about to lose because of a spoiler

[–] stanleytweedle 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I think it's more that the Republican party recognizes what an albatross Trump has become and are trying to mitigate the damage to down ballot Republicans by old-school Republicans staying home because they're fed up with Trump.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They do? He’s their candidate and they sure seem to be embracing almost everything he does. I don’t really think there’s much that supports this viewpoint

[–] stanleytweedle 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

k- then what's your theory on why Republican donors would support a third-party candidate?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Because it will pull Biden voters away more than it will pull Trump voters away

[–] stanleytweedle 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What third party candidate do you think would pull more voters from Biden than Trump?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] stanleytweedle -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Please re-read my answer since you clearly didn’t read it at all.

[–] stanleytweedle 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What third party candidate do you think would pull more voters from Biden than Trump?

I'll give you another chance to prove your functionally literate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

*you’re

The article directly addresses that and you could google it anyway. Why don’t we skip to the part where you make the point you were going to make and stop pretending like you care about my answer?

[–] stanleytweedle 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

So you can't name even one candidate that fits your little theory?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] stanleytweedle 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

My point is you can't name a single candidate that fits your theory.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 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?