To shame or change the game: Third party voters in the 2024 election
by Seona Maskara (class of 2026)
In the last month before the 2024 election, rhetoric against third parties started flooding social media and newspaper opinion sections. A large range of people, including those who had previously voted third party and founders of third parties such as Andrew Yang, argued that the only way to prevent another Trump presidency was voting for Harris.
For the first time ever, the Democratic Party launched ads against a third party candidate who they thought would take the most votes away from them — Jill Stein — asserting that a vote for Stein was simply a vote for Trump. The harsh tone in “She’s not sorry she helped Trump win”, essentially blaming Stein for Trump’s previous electoral win, shaming those who voted for her. The image of Stein morphing into Trump further adds to this rhetoric, proclaiming equality between the two, shaming — likely left leaning — voters who do not want to vote for Trump, but also do not want to vote for Harris.
This argument is not new. In two of the last Democratic presidential defeats — in 2000 and 2016 — third-party voters could have made the difference to elect the Democratic candidate. In 2000, the election came down to Florida, where Bush won by mere hundreds of votes — less than what Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, won in Florida. Because Green Party voters are generally more left-leaning, there is an argument that if Nader had not been on the ballot, Al Gore would have won the election. In 2016, third party candidates garnered percentages of the vote higher than the difference between Trump and Clinton in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, among other swing states. These margins suggest that if even some had switched to voting for Clinton, she would have won the presidential election.
However, this pattern did not continue into the 2024 election. In Pennsylvania, a state many expected would determine the election,, Donald Trump won by 126,863 votes. Third party candidates Stein and Chase Oliver won 67,603; not even their combined total would have flipped Pennsylvania. In Wisconsin, the state that put Trump at the amount of electoral votes needed, no single third party could have made the difference between Trump and Harris, and it is unlikely that either major party candidate would have gained all of the third party votes.
The fact that third party voting wasn’t enough to make the difference between a Trump and Harris presidency is perhaps evidence that the shaming of third party voting worked. Regardless this still leaves us with a question: is it undemocratic to dissuade voters from voting for third party candidates?
According to Gallup polls, 58% of Americans believe that a major third political party is necessary, a number that has been consistently higher than 50% since 2013. If Americans feel disillusioned by the two party system, is shaming a third party really the answer? Are there other methods to ensure people have a say between the two main candidates, but can also voice their preferences on third parties? This is relevant when looking at the reasons people may be voting third party. In exit polls for the general public, foreign policy voters also were more likely to vote third party. Harris and Trump both expressed support for Israel on the campaign trail, meaning voters who are against the current war in Gaza — such as many Arab Americans — may not see either party as a viable option.
Furthermore, people who identified as Independent — which could include many voting third-party — were significantly less likely to vote as compared to all respondents of the poll, according to data from the Tufts Public Opinion Lab. One possible explanation is that when people don’t agree with either the Democratic or Republican party, and the option of voting third party is stigmatized, people are less likely to vote — possibly indicating voter disenfranchisement. Another possibility is that independents are less likely to run because of the stigmatization of third-party candidates themselves, so voters don’t have a candidate who aligns with their political views. Either way, the stark difference in likelihood of voting indicates a significant problem surrounding third parties in the United States.
One solution to the lack of third party viability could be ranked-choice voting, which would allow voters to vote third party, but then allocate their vote to a major political party if the third party doesn’t acquire enough votes to win the election. Voters who use ranked choice voting are in full support of the system; 60% of voters in Utah said they were more likely to vote for their favorite candidate with ranked-choice voting. However, it seems like this favorable viewpoint is mainly held by those that live in places that already have ranked-choice voting; ballot measures to implement it failed in nine states on November 5, only passing in Washington DC. Potential downsides could be that changes are too confusing, issues with majority support due to the ranking system, and ballot exhaustion — where voters don’t fill out the whole ranking. The lack of support prior to implementation and broad support after indicate potential gaps in understanding of ranked choice voting.
Ranked choice voting recently took the stage in Maine’s second congressional district. No party won 50% of the vote; Golden (the Democrat) won 48.38% of the vote, Poliquin (the Republican) won 44.65% of the vote, and Bond (the Independent) won 6.84% of the vote. Because ranked-choice voting requires a majority, not a plurality, Bond was eliminated, and her votes were distributed (as shown in the animation on fair vote’s website). Golden then won the majority — 53.05% of the votes — and won the seat. In this election, 6.84% of voters were able to express their preference for a third party candidate — potentially influencing future policy — and still were able to cast a meaningful ballot within the two-party system that commands American politics.
Bond ran her campaign on the basis of cost effective politics, valuing privacy, safety, and working with both Democrats and Republicans, emphasizing the partisan divide in the United States. Golden, already a moderate, could look at the ways their policies differ and implement them, or place more of an emphasis on working between parties in the House, as his win was in part attributed to those who initially voted third party. Seeing third party policy suggestions implemented could also encourage more third party candidates to run. Going back to the previous graph, ranked-choice voting could be a solution which would allow non-voters to have more options and a greater chance to have their voices heard.
While shaming third party voters may have worked in the recent election (as fewer people voted third party), it is certainly not the way our democracy should work moving forward. Instead of shaming voting for third-party candidates, campaigners should consider the current disillusionment with the major political parties, and focus on solutions, such as ranked choice voting, a widely supported policy where voters would still be able to express their third-party preferences.
