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In tight race, Florida's third-party voters could again decide election

 
Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein speaks to media during a press conference in the Cuban Club in Ybor City on Wednesday. (ANDRES LEIVA   |   Times)

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein speaks to media during a press conference in the Cuban Club in Ybor City on Wednesday. (ANDRES LEIVA | Times)
Published Sept. 30, 2016

A Super Bowl-sized audience tuned in Monday night to watch two presidential candidates duke it out on a debate stage inside an auditorium on Long Island.

Two more presidential candidates were locked out, forced to watch it on television like regular voters: Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.

Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico, is the Libertarian Party nominee. Stein, a Massachusetts physician and activist, represents the Green Party.

Neither have much chance of winning the Nov. 8 election, experts say, but both could have an outsized effect on the outcome, especially in Florida. The crucial swing state and near must-win for Republican nominee Donald Trump could come down to who loses the fewest votes to Johnson and Stein.

Which means we could see a repeat of the 2000 election, when some say the 97,488 Floridians who voted for the Green Party's Ralph Nader handed the presidency to Republican George W. Bush.

"That could definitely happen," said Hans Noel, associate professor of government at Georgetown University. "That is certainly within the realm of possible things. If it's a close race, it's very likely to be the situation."

• • •

Johnson, 63, hit the political scene in 1993 when he ran as a Republican for governor of New Mexico. Despite having no prior political experience — he ran a successful construction company — he defeated the Democratic incumbent by 10 points and was re-elected.

Johnson ran for president in 2012 as a Republican, but his relatively liberal social views alienated him from the primary pack. He eventually bailed on the Republican Party and won the Libertarian nomination that year, earning 1,275,923 votes nationally in the general election — more than any other Libertarian candidate ever — or about 1 percent of the popular vote. He won no electoral votes.

This cycle, both Johnson and his running mate, Bill Weld, are former Republican governors. Weld, 71, was Massachusetts' executive from 1991 to 1997.

True to Libertarian form, Johnson wants to limit the size of government, and his biggest priority is wrangling the exorbitant national debt, which stands at about $19.5 trillion and grows by roughly $10,000 every second, according to usdebtclock.org. On his website, Johnson promises that as president, he'll veto any legislation that would result in Congress spending more than it collects in revenue and to truly balance the budget.

"Too much spending is a result of too much government," said Joe Hunter, Johnson campaign's communications director. "So the key to reducing government is to reduce spending."

On social issues, Johnson supports the right of LGBT people to marry and of women to have abortions.

Among the places he differs from traditional Libertarianism is his support of national parks and the Environmental Protection Agency.

• • •

Jill Stein, 66, made her first foray into presidential politics in 2012. Running under the Green Party banner, she earned fewer than half a million votes nationwide, or 0.36 percent of votes cast.

Previously, the Harvard-educated physician repeatedly sought office in Massachusetts losing all four bids as a Green Party candidate. She ran for governor in 2002, coming in third with roughly 3.5 percent of the vote. (Mitt Romney won.) She ran for governor again in 2010, earning 1.4 percent of the vote.

Poll numbers indicate she's likely to do better in the presidential race this year. That's in large part, retired College of Charleston political science professor David Gillespie said, because young liberals who were energized by former Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders' progressive policies see Stein as the only option.

"Stein has a lot of Bernie, college voters who haven't forgiven the (Democratic National Committee) for 'stealing' the election from Bernie," Gillespie said, referring to the scandal in which leaked emails indicated preferential treatment toward Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton from the committee's leadership.

Stein's No. 1 priority if elected is eliminating student debt, an idea Sanders popularized during the primary.

"The first step is to bail out a generation of young people who are held hostage by student debt," she said to reporters Wednesday before an appearance at the Cuban Club in Ybor City.

The next step would be to implement her "Green New Deal," transitioning completely to renewable energy by 2030.

"Which is what the science is now telling us we need if we're going to keep Florida from being inundated by the melting and the breaking of the ice sheets," she said.

Stein also supports a $15 minimum wage and Medicare for everyone.

• • •

Stein has one campaign office in Florida, in Orlando, and Johnson doesn't have any. Neither candidate has paid staffers anywhere in the state. Those who work in Stein's Orlando office are all local Green Party volunteers.

"We're a virtual campaign," said Hunter, Johnson's communications director. "So we don't have many physical offices around. But that doesn't mean anything."

"We don't even have a national campaign office," he said.

The reason? Johnson and Stein are not raking in cash. Stein has raised about $2.3 million, according to the Federal Election Commission, and Johnson has raised about $7.9 million.

Neither campaign is running targeted ads in Florida, though Johnson is running TV commercials nationally, and some of those ads appear in Florida. Instead, both campaigns rely on free media, social media and volunteers.

Johnson appeared on cable news with some regularity last month, but his standout moments were not the best free media. On Sept. 8 while on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Johnson asked "What is Aleppo?", not recognizing the city at the heart of Syria's humanitarian crisis. Then Wednesday during a town hall with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Johnson couldn't name a single foreign leader he admired.

On one hand, Johnson's 7.4 percent in a RealClearPolitics.com average of recent national polls and Stein's 2.4 percent trail far behind Trump and Clinton. And neither reached the 15 percent threshold established by the Commission on Presidential Debates.

On the other hand, their combined support of almost 10 percent is the highest third parties have polled since Ross Perot earned nearly 20 percent in 1992.

• • •

With Clinton and Trump unpopular to levels not seen in modern presidential politics, more would-be Republicans and Democrats are considering third-party candidates. And with the election zeroing in on Florida as a key state, the stars appear to be aligning for a repeat of 2000.

It depends, though, if Johnson and Stein pull more votes away from one side than the other. If they pull equally from both sides, it'll be a wash.

Take Perot, who's 18.9 percent of the popular vote stands as the best showing of any third-party candidate. The independent likely had less to do with Bill Clinton winning the 1992 election than Nader did with Bush winning in 2000, even though Nader got a fraction of Perot's support, said Gillespie, author of Challengers to Duopoly: Why Third Parties Matter in American Two-Party Politics.

That's because Perot's support came almost evenly from conservatives and liberals, Gillespie said, so he wasn't siphoning votes from one major-party candidate over another.

Nader's 2.4 percent in 2000 came mostly from liberal voters, Gillespie said, who likely would have voted for Democrat Al Gore had Nader not run.

Stein rejected the idea that a vote for her would be analogous to a vote for Trump.

"I would feel terrible if Trump gets elected, but I'll also feel terrible if Hillary gets elected," she said. "This is a perfect storm for a voter revolt."

Contact Josh Solomon at (813) 909-4613 or jsolomon@tampabay.com. Follow @josh_solomon15.