As November 8th draws ever nearer, the American people continue to agonize over which Presidential candidate to support. Polls show Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in a dead heat in the battleground states of Ohio, Florida and Michigan. But countless voters still find the GOP and Democratic nominees reprehensible and have turned to support third party candidates, who include Jill Stein of the Green Party and Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party.
However, many people caution against Third-Party support because they feel that it is throwing away a vote, an idea further enhanced by these candidates' inability to participate in the debates due to their low poll numbers. The popular sentiment is that a vote for the Green or Libertarian parties is a vote for Donald Trump. I would heartily challenge that idea by saying that a vote for a Third-Party candidate is just a vote for a Third-Party candidate.
In this election there are two independent candidates that are gaining traction; usually there is only one, such as Ross Perot or Ralph Nader, that would divide the votes in the Republican or Democratic Parties. This time, you can say that the Green Party would take votes away from Hillary and the Libertarians will take away some of Trump's votes. Indeed, Amy Chozick and Jonathan Martin of the New York Times write "What is striking is that Mr. Johnson, despite being a former Republican governor who supports limited government, appears to take just as many votes from Mrs. Clinton as he does from Mr. Trump. When asked to choose between the two major party nominees, 23 percent of Mr. Johnson’s supporters said they would back Mrs. Clinton while 20 percent said they would favor Mr. Trump." The Third-Party votes hurt both nominees in this election, which goes against the idea that votes for Third-Party candidates only help Trump.
That belief is further questioned by the fact that representatives from the GOP and Democratic Parties are using it against each other. The Democrats assert that Third-Party votes assist Trump while the Republicans argue that they help Hillary. All of this makes it next to impossible to say if those votes actually benefit anyone else, other than the Third-Party candidates. That is why I choose to view votes for the main nominees and those of the Third and Fourth parties as mutually exclusive.
To all of you out there who want to vote for the Green or Libertarian Parties, I would encourage you to do so. Vote for the person whom you like the best.
