Does A 3rd Party Ticket Really Have A Shot?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, BloombergSpecifically, one that has Bloomberg at the helm?
This author doesn’t seem to think so and he has a good point strictly from a “numbers” standpoint…
Unlike 1992 – when Bill Clinton emerged as a flawed winner in a second-rate field – Democrats today seem enthused about their choices. In all probability, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will win the nomination. [...]Clinton, many Democrats fear, has a low ceiling and might be hard-pressed to capture 50 percent of the vote in a two-way contest. That’s true, yet she also has a high floor. With the fervent backing of many minorities, women, yellow-dog (i.e., reliable) Democrats and “Clintonistas,” she’ll get 40 percent of the vote in a multi-candidate field.
In order to win, which is the only reason Bloomberg would run, the Republican candidate, whoever he was, could not take more than 20 percent of the vote. That’s not going to happen.
Given this, is there a plausible scenario where Bloomberg could capture the White House? Or would he simply pull more votes away from the Republican?
Discuss.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 6th, 2007 and is filed under 2008 Election, Bloomberg. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 6th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
I think it’s inaccurate to say that Clinton’s floor is 40%. I’d say closer to 35%. The Republicans’ floor is as low as 25% at this point. So from a pure numbers standpoint, at least by my figuring, Bloomberg could win if he won just about every available voter that wasn’t already committed to one of the major party candidates.
August 6th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
The biggest problem with a third party candidate is that the electoral system is not designed to have more than two candidates. If Bloomberg, for example, takes a few big states he could easily screw up either of the other two candidates, depending on whether that state usually leans slightly left or right.
Since he’s Republican, theoretically he’s more likely to take red states, but since he’s somewhat socially liberal, he may appeal better to republicans in more moderate states. Basically if he’s in the running, it’s REALLY tough to figure out how it would swing the race, or if he would even possible win. Especially since he would likely spend a few billion of his own money on the race.