By Steven V. Roberts

The recent headline in the Washington Post read: “Democrats are taking third-party threats seriously this time.”

Well, better late than never. Twice already in this century, in 2000 and 2016, Democrats won the popular vote but lost the White House because third parties sank their candidates in key states. 

This year, if Democrats want to defeat Donald Trump, they have to thwart third parties in every possible way — challenging their place on state ballots, attacking them as spoilers, drowning them in negative ads. 

Even more critically, they must make clear to wavering voters that elections have consequences. They have to pound home the message to disaffected Democrats — specifically youths and Blacks and Latino Americans — that no matter how much they might disdain Joe Biden, Trump would be worse for their own self-interest. 

The best example of those consequences is the Supreme Court. It can be difficult to crystalize the impact of any president. Their influence on the economy, for example, is always limited. But judgeships are often the most visible, the most tangible legacy of any president. And that’s clearly true of Trump, since he appointed the three justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade and repeal the national right to have an abortion. 

The Democrats’ core message should be: You might not like Biden, you might think he’s old, you might hate his Middle East policies, but a vote for a third party is a vote for Trump. And a vote for Trump is a vote for more judges who will restrict your personal rights and choices. 

Third parties often don’t matter in national elections, but this year is an exception, mainly because both major candidates are so unpopular. In national polls, both Biden and Trump have favorable ratings stuck in the low 40s.  

“History suggests disaffected voters gravitate back toward the main two party candidates, but we’ve never had two party candidates that are this unpopular where their negatives are higher than the positives for both of them,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres told the Post. “It would not be surprising to see a larger proportion of voters pick somebody other than the two major candidates.”

Moreover, this election, like the last two, is likely to be very close. In 2016, 6% of the electorate backed third-party candidates. Many were liberals who had supported Sen. Bernie Sanders and were disillusioned with Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party. And their selfish shortsightedness helped defeat her. In all three states that decided the outcome — Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan — the third-party vote far exceeded Trump’s margin of victory.

After four years of Trump, many of those dissidents returned to the Democratic fold. The third-party vote nationally dropped from 6% to under 2% — perhaps the single biggest reason Biden won. Just look at Michigan: Trump won the state by 11,000 votes in 2016, as 250,000 Michiganders backed third parties. In 2020, the third-party vote plummeted to 85,000, and Biden won the state by 154,000. 

Right now, there are three significant third-party contenders in the race. Anti-vaccination activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and left-wing professor Cornel West are running as independents. Jill Stein, who garnered almost 1.5 million votes in 2016, is running again on the Green Party line. 

Polls at this stage are notoriously unreliable. But in national averages compiled by RealClearPolitics, Trump leads Biden by 1 point in head-to-head matchups, but by 2.5 points when the other three candidate are included. Together, Kennedy, Stein and West attract about 14% of the vote, with Kennedy accounting for 10.8%. And by naming zillionaire Nicole Shanahan as his running mate, Kennedy will have the financial resources to get his name on many state ballots. 

Kennedy is a quirky figure, with a gold-plated Democratic name but many Republican policies, and his eventual impact remains uncertain. But there’s mounting evidence that he would hurt Biden more than Trump, and Kennedy recently attacked Biden on CNN as being a “much worse threat to democracy” than his Republican rival. 

Trump has called Kennedy’s candidacy “great for MAGA” and adds, “I love that he is running.” Team Biden agrees that Kennedy poses a major threat, and recently organized a group of supporters to denounce him. “All he can do is take away votes from President Biden and make it easier for Donald Trump to win. And we simply can’t afford to let that happen,” said Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis.

If Democrats want to beat Trump, they have to crush Kennedy — and the other third-party candidates as well.

Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. He can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.