Do third party candidates do worse in swing states?

[Mr. Morden]

Just curious.  Logically, if you don't like either major party candidate and are interested in voting third party, you nonetheless might feel compelled to vote for the "lesser of two evils", so as not to "waste your vote".  But if you live in a state that isn't the least bit competitive, then your vote is irrelevant anyway.  So your thinking might be different from how it would be if you were in a swing state.

But has anyone ever actually tried to quantify 3rd party performance in presidential elections in swing states vs. in non-competitive states?

[Nym90]

Not that I know of, but it wouldn't be too hard to run a regression analysis on past third party candidates. It would be interesting to find out.

My guess would be no, as most voters are not that strategic/tactical. Practically speaking, the odds of a state being decided by one vote are always extremely small, so it doesn't really make sense to vote differently because you live in a swing state as opposed to a non competitive one (leaving aside the question of where the line between the two is even drawn).

[RaphaelDLG]

I'll give someone a dollar if they run a significance test on this.