Did Johnson cost Hillary the election?

[5280]

If Johnson wasn't on the ballot, I'd vote Trump.

[Mr. Morden]

With regard to both the Johnson and Stein voters, I guess there are two interrelated questions, which might have different answers:

1) How would the third party voters have voted (if they would have voted at all) if only Clinton and Trump had been on the ballot?

2) How do these voters tend in vote in most elections (e.g., how did they vote in 2012, assuming they were eligible)?

It could be the case that the Johnson/Stein voters were disproportionately Dem.-leaning voters who may well have voted Obama in 2012, yet wouldn't have voted Clinton this time even if the only options on the ballot were Clinton and Trump.  In that case, you can't really say that Johnson cost her the election, because they wouldn't have voted Clinton even if Johnson hadn't been an option.

[Mr. Morden]

Relevant:



And recall that, if you believe the exit polls, a majority of Johnson/Stein voters said that they wouldn't have voted at all if the only choices had been Clinton and Trump.

[elcorazon]

It's ironic that her husband Bill won because of Ross Perot.

No. Johnson did not cost Hillary the election and Perot did not cost Bush the election.

[SPQR]

If Johnson had run a decent campaign, he could have possibly gained more votes which eventually went to Trump.

[jaichind]

And I think there is a good argument that if anything Johnson cost Trump NH.

[elcorazon]

If Johnson had run a decent campaign, he could have possibly gained more votes which eventually went to Trump.

there could be something to this. I do wonder if Johnson seemed like a thoughtful candidate, perhaps he could have had a Perot like vote total that might have taken away from Trump more than Clinton. On the other hand, Republicans were likely always coming home.
Hillary had a really hard time convincing people that she could be both President and a woman at the same time.

[Hammy]

Johnson likely helped cost Trump the PV more than he cost Clinton the election.

[°Leprechaun]

No third-party candidate has ever cost a major-party candidate an election.  The votes that go to third-party candidates don't belong to the Republican or the Democrat--they belong to the voters who cast them.  So those votes aren't "coming from" the major-party candidates--they were never theirs to begin with.

Good point. If the GOP and Dems wanted to they could support IRV.

[BaldEagle1991]

It's these types of talk is why I'm slowly becoming a huge advocate of IRV.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

No, probably just a bunch of votes in safe states.

[zorkpolitics]

Exit polls indicated 1/2 of the Johnson and Stein voters would not have voted for anyone.

[ApatheticAustrian]

oh, i am pretty sure at least SOME VOTES would have been set differently if the state polls in the midwest would have been correct.

most of them not...and i guess not enough anyway to change anything.

but assuming NO ONE would have voted differently if there would have been at least a few major polls with trump leading in PA/MI/WI seems naive too.

[angus]

Did Johnson cost Hillary the election?

No.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

The whole weirdness of this election is that there was no one or two major factors that cost Hillary the election. A multiple small factors like this just all fell in the place.

[°Leprechaun]

The whole weirdness of this election is that there was no one or two major factors that cost Hillary the election. A multiple small factors like this just all fell in the place.

Yes, but some people are always looking for a scapegoat (like Nader in 2000).

[Enduro]

Her being a terrible candidate cost her the election. If not being the other person is your best quality, a whole lot of people are going to look for another choice.

[fhtagn]

Her being a terrible candidate cost her the election. If not being the other person is your best quality, a whole lot of people are going to look for another choice.

[RINO Tom]

Exit polls indicated 1/2 of the Johnson and Stein voters would not have voted for anyone.

Meh, some of the late Republican primary exit polls indicated that up to 50% of Republicans "would not vote for Donald Trump under any circumstances" ... I think when Election Day arrives and you aren't passionate about a third party (as Johnson and Stein voters were), you end up holding your nose, more often than not.  If there were two people on the ballot (Clinton and Trump), I'll bet that a majority of Johnson and Stein voters turn out and pick one.

[twenty42]

The whole weirdness of this election is that there was no one or two major factors that cost Hillary the election. A multiple small factors like this just all fell in the place.

This is the case for most if not all presidential elections. Recollections of "the moment that so-and-so won/lost the election" are mostly instances of retroactive shoehorning.

That's what made Hillary's comment that she would have won the election 10 days earlier so baseless and ridiculous. An election isn't a snapshot. It's a culmination of hundreds of events, some bearing more weight than others.

[Adam Griffin]

The only state where I've seen evidence that Johnson voters were anywhere close to being 50/50 left-leaning/right-leaning is NM. Voters under 45 were around 14% Johnson in '16 and Clinton won under 45s there by the same margin Obama did in 2012.

As far as "guilting" conservatives into voting for Hillary had there not being a right-leaning third-party option: no, I don't believe it would have worked in terms of net gain.

[JoshPA]

If anything, Trump probably would have won by more if Johnson was not there.

and McMullin too

Unlike Johnson and Jill Stein, McMullin's candidacy was a purely reactionary anti-Trump candidacy. His share of the vote in Virginia and Minnesota is larger than Clinton's winning margin over Trump in those two states.

I really think this is the 1948 election.

Trump is Truman.
Clinton is Dewey.
Johnson and McMullin are Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace.

Wasnt Strom Thurmond only on the ballot in the south?

[Fuzzy Bear]

Johnson voter here. If I (and most of my Johnson voting friends) lived in a swing state, we would've voted Clinton. I'd say that there's some Johnson people that would've gone Clinton, but I doubt that number is as high as the number who would've voted Trump. CNN's exit poll was useless. I wanted something that listed the second choice for third party voters.

So I suppose it's impossible to tell.

[BuckeyeNut]

Third parties always hurt both candidates, but they hurt Trump more than Clinton this year.

All the polling indicated otherwise.

But no, Johnson didn't cost Clinton the election. That's absurd.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I said this earlier, Clinton would have won WI, MI and PA had it not been for Johnson and Stein. Bernie Sanders would have won over those voters that went to Johnson and Stein and wouldn't have cost him the election.  

However, if Sestak and Feingold would have won, in PA and WI, it would have been a Clinton prez as well.

Having lost the SCOTUS, the Dems will turn their fortunes around in the gerrymandered house and win Control of the House in 2018, which is the only plus of a Trump prez