The Plausibility of Gary Johnson Winning Electoral Votes in 2016

The last time a third-party candidate won electoral votes in a Presidential election was in 1968, when segregationist George Wallace won five Southern states in the contentious aftermath of the passage of the Civil Rights Act four years prior. While Wallace won just 14% of the national popular vote, because his vote was highly concentrated geographically, he was able to siphon off 46 electoral votes in a close election between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. Wallace is the only third-party candidate in the last 100 years to win electoral votes.

There is a powerful structural explanation behind the poor historical performance of third parties in American history. American elections are subject to a single-member simple plurality system, which means that in a single district, electoral votes are awarded to the single candidate who achieves a plurality of the vote. Contrast this with proportional electoral structures, which above a minimum threshold divide representation in proportion to share of the vote. The SMSP system produces what is sometimes called the “Wasted Vote Phenomenon”: voters tend to avoid candidates who they assume have zero probability of victory, even if that candidate closely resembles their personal policy preferences, and will settle for an imperfect candidate who they perceive has some probability of victory.

For third-party candidates, the result is often a negative feedback loop wherein the candidate polls low leading up to the election because voters perceive that they cannot win, fueling the continued perception they cannot win, and reducing the amount of media coverage they receive. Come election day, the vast majority of voters will sacrifice some degree of fidelity to their policy preferences and choose one of the candidates from the two dominant parties.

Because the electoral system in the United States is unfavorable to third party candidates, and given their poor historical performance, is it plausible that a third-party candidate like Gary Johnson could win electoral votes, let alone the election, in 2016?

There are certainly idiosyncrasies of the 2016 race, specific to the personalities of the two major candidates, while perhaps not as structurally powerful as the geographic partisan realignment of 1968, that benefit a third-party candidate. If you’re reading this, you’re highly likely to be already familiar with the high rate of mutual unfavorability for Trump/Clinton. But even so, as of today, Johnson polls at just 8.4% according to the RCP Average, and while some states do have a much higher share of Libertarians—more discussion on this later—his support is not subject to the same degree of geographic concentration as someone like Wallace, a headwind for winning electoral votes.

But I’d argue that there actually is a plausible scenario for Johnson victories, despite the headwinds; Johnson could hit a point of critical mass in support that would immediately remove the psychological “wasted-vote phenomenon”, resulting in a snowball wherein he gains increased exposure.

The series of triggers that together create a plausible scenario for victory are as follows: (1) Reaches 15% Support Required to Participate in the Presidential Debates this Fall, (2) Connects with Voters during a Strong Debate Performance, and (3) Media Coverage of the Positive Trend.

The first trigger: Reaching 15% Support and Participating in the Presidential Debates this Fall

The Committee for Presidential Debates (CPD) has announced their requirement that a candidate register at least 15% in at least 5 national polls to be included in the debates. Though Johnson is only at 8-9% in the RCP average, Johnson has recorded 13% and 12% each multiple times, and with five weeks until the first debate on September 26th, with several dozen polls to be released during that time, a few point in his underlying numbers, achieving 15% in five polls on variance is very possible.

Trigger two: Connects with Voters during a Strong Debate Performance

Polls testing the favorability and unfavorability ratings of Gary Johnson over the last few months have variously registered percentages ranging from 49% and 78% of the electorate who don’t know enough about him to form an opinion. This represents a huge treasure trove of untapped potential that is unavailable to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, both of whom have essentially universal name recognition. So if Johnson were to enter the first debate with 15% support, exiting it with 20% is entirely reasonable.

Trigger three: Media Coverage Of The Positive Trend

Consider the flip-side of the obstacles faced by a third-party candidate– that because success is rare, when that candidate surges to 20%, it’s newsworthy. Reference the media coverage of the Bernie Sanders campaign—it was a great story for a septuagenarian socialist to actually challenge the powerful favorite of the party establishment.

Erosion of “Wasted Vote” Phenomenon, and Winning in a 3-4 Person Race

Say Johnson were at 20% after the first debate, and becomes the subject of increased media coverage as mentioned above. Johnson is now suddenly a viable candidate to voters, and voters who had some interest in him but would not support him due to fear of wasting their vote, now do.

Remember that Johnson doesn’t need to shoot for 50%; in a 4-person race (Jill Stein is also polling relatively well for a 3P candidate), the winner might win with something like 33%, or even less.

Which States are the Best Opportunities for Johnson?

We do have some basis for comparison, at least on a relative basis compared to national vote share, given that Johnson ran in 2012. In an election year where neither candidate was under FBI investigation nor had uttered a myriad of comments objectionable to a variety of ethnic and religious groups, Johnson earned 1% of the national vote.

The highest shares by state for Johnson were:[1]

New Mexico (GJ’s home state) – 3.55% Montana – 2.93% Alaska – 2.46% Wyoming – 2.14% Idaho – 1.91%

You might expect a state like New Hampshire, high in it’s share of Libertarians[2] and a state motto of “Live Free or Die”, to be in the top 5 of Johnson’s highest relative 2012 vote share, but the Libertarian candidate earned just 1.16% of the vote, just slightly higher than the national average.

What’s the difference between NH and a state like Montana or Wyoming, all of which are Libertarian-rich? The latter two aren’t swing states. This lackluster NH performance may be representative of a larger phenomenon: voters in swing states perceive their vote to be more valuable, and are therefore even less likely to “waste” their vote. Montana and Wyoming were non-competitive in 2012.

But the difference in perceived viability of a 10-20% national candidate and 1% national candidate may be enough to register significant and disproportionate upside in Libertarian-rich states, even if they are usually swing states.

Colorado for instance, also a Libertarian-rich swing state, gave Johnson only a slightly improved 1.38% in 2012, registered 16% (almost double his national average) in the most recent Quinnipiac poll there just over a week ago.

So If Gary Johnson hits the 3 triggers I laid out in this post, he is very much a threat to win states like Colorado and New Hampshire. And if there are state polls leading up to the election that have him leading, it makes him a viable candidate everywhere.

[1] www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2012/federalelections2012.pdf

[2] http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/26/this-map-shows-how-many-libertarians-are