Hey, Democrats: Ignore Green Party presidential candidate J**l St**n

Last week, the Democratic National Committee and Kamala Harris' campaign did something that had never been done before in a Democratic presidential campaign: They released a 30-second television commercial attacking a third-party candidate, particularly the Green Party candidate. The Democratic salvo also includes billboards in swing state cities.

“Why do you (Donald) Trump’s allies help you?” The narrator of the television ad asks about the Green Party candidate. Because it “was the key to Trump’s 2016 victories in the battleground states,” is the answer. Meanwhile, an image of the Green Party candidate's face and gray bob morphs into Trump's. The ad ends with Trump telling his rally attendees, “I like them a lot. Do you know why? It takes 100 percent away from them.”

The Green Party candidate is mentioned by name in the ad. I don't – because it should be ignored, it shouldn't be given any attention, whether through an ad buy or something Washington Monthly Bounce in Google algorithms.

The scarred Democrats have justification for a frontal attack on the Green Party candidate, who is on the ballot in six battleground states (but not Nevada) and another 32 states, for a total of 38, as opposed to Cornel West, who is only on the ballot in 16 state election stands (although a court has ruled that his votes won't be counted in Georgia). Ralph Nader, the legendary consumer activist and Green Party presidential candidate in 2000, played a spoiler role in giving Florida to Republican nominee George W. Bush. (See my detailed analysis of the Florida numbers, published in Really clear policy eight years ago.)

And Democrats have evidence that confronting third-party candidates is working after Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s independent presidential bid was throttled. Once a progressive icon with a storied name, Kennedy abandoned a Democratic primary last year in hopes of winning over a group of Democratic voters who approved of him, and early polls suggested some were willing to follow him . Then Democratic Party officials hit him so hard that not only did the support Kennedy had among Democrats disappear, but with his newfound conservative support he also risked becoming a liability to Trump's candidacy. Unwilling to help Harris get elected, Kennedy abandoned the presidential race and supported Trump.

But Kennedy, leaning on his famous name, launched his independence push with unusually high poll numbers and outsized media attention, justifying a vigorous effort to remove him from the race.

In her third presidential candidacy, the Green Party candidate received little media attention and barely landed in the polls. In the Really clear policy The national average and in the battleground states averages 1 point – give or take a few tenths of a point. And that's likely an exaggeration of their support, since third-party candidates tend to perform better in pre-election polls than in actual election results.

In 2020, Howie Hawkins, the Green Party presidential candidate, received 0.8 percentage points in the final Really clear policy National average before landing at 0.2. Likewise, Libertarian Jo Jorgensen had a polling average of 1.8 but received only 1.2 percent of the vote. In 2016, when the current Green Party candidate had her second chance at the presidency, she got 1.9 percent Really clear policy, then won 1.1 percent of the vote, while Libertarian Gary Johnson, a relatively strong third-party candidate with unusual political credibility as a former Republican governor of New Mexico, rose from 4.7 to 3.3. If the Green Party candidate is at one percent today, she should end up at around half a percent.

I hear you scream, But! But! But! The battleground states are even dead! Democrats cannot afford for a single vote to go to a third party candidate!

Sure, but if a third-party candidate is polling between zero and one, you can't assume that many of those voters are even available for one of the major party candidates. At this point you're largely relying on people who will never vote for Republicans and Democrats.

But what about 2016, when the green person you won't name carried three swing states to Trump?!

Despite what the Democratic Party's new ad claims, the evidence does not support the claim that the Green Party played a spoiler role in 2016.

Two political science professors, Christopher Devine of the University of Dayton and Kyle Kopko of Elizabethtown College, examined the 2016 election numbers and concluded that about 56 percent of Green voters (and 60 percent of voters) were on the ballot when neither was green nor a libertarian candidate took part in the election (libertarians) would not vote or find another candidate from a smaller party. Another 8 percent of the Greens sided with Trump. That would have left 36 percent of the Green vote – again only 1.1 percent of the total vote – for Hillary Clinton. According to Devine and Kopko, such a redistribution of the Green Party's vote would lead to this not moved every swing state to the Democratic column, except Michigan, and only if the Libertarian had remained on the ballot.

There is much more evidence that Nader actually played a spoiler role in 2000, also because the lead in Florida 24 years ago (officially only 537 votes) was much smaller than the lead in the swing states in 2016 (10,704, in Michigan 22,748). in Wisconsin and 44,292 in Pennsylvania).

Of course, there could always be infinitesimal margins – especially when the polls are so close – and that can justify any attempt to warn dissatisfied Democrats against a complete defection.

But the current Green Party candidate, unlike Nader, who was a household name, suffered from a lack of media oxygen until the Democrats ran an ad about her! A press release from the Democratic National Committee said CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, Fox News, PBS, The New York Times, Washington Postand several swing state media outlets reported on the ad aimed at the three-time third-party candidate. This is probably the most media attention the Greens have received all year, and they should be excited about it.

A candidate cannot be a spoilsport if voters don't know the candidate exists. The Democrats would have been better off giving the Greens silence, which is why I am doing so.

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