I was just idly musing on the idea of an Independent candidate

[Harry Hayfield]

and decided to do some toying around to see how easy or difficult it was for an Ind to get anywhere.

For an Independent to get any electoral college votes, they would need to poll a minimum of 13% nationally (and that would enable an Independent to win AK), in order to win at least a tenth of the electoral college (54 Electoral College Votes) an Independent would have to poll 16% of the national vote and to win outright an Independent would need at least 40% of the national vote.

So therefore does this mean that all an Independent candidate would do is steal votes from one candidate and not the other (allowing the other candidate to win with a lower voter share that would be expected in a two horse race).

[Хahar 🤔]

A candidate could steal votes from both, though that's unlikely in the US today.

[Hash]

and decided to do some toying around to see how easy or difficult it was for an Ind to get anywhere.

For an Independent to get any electoral college votes, they would need to poll a minimum of 13% nationally (and that would enable an Independent to win AK), in order to win at least a tenth of the electoral college (54 Electoral College Votes) an Independent would have to poll 16% of the national vote and to win outright an Independent would need at least 40% of the national vote.

So therefore does this mean that all an Independent candidate would do is steal votes from one candidate and not the other (allowing the other candidate to win with a lower voter share that would be expected in a two horse race).

An Independent will win some other state before winning Alaska IMO.

[Jake]

A candidate could steal votes from both, though that's unlikely in the US today.

What? You're telling me if Bloomberg ran against Generic D and Generic R he wouldn't pull from both sides? Perot, Wallace, and Anderson did.

[Хahar 🤔]

A candidate could steal votes from both, though that's unlikely in the US today.

What? You're telling me if Bloomberg ran against Generic D and Generic R he wouldn't pull from both sides? Perot, Wallace, and Anderson did.

I mean that the vote-stealing won't be anywhere near 50-50. Perot was 60-40ish, and even that due to the special conditions prevailing in '92, Wallace was 70-30, and that due to the fact that the South was shifting from the Democrats to the Republicans, and Anderson didn't get too many votes, IIRC.

[Jake]

6.6%.

And yeah, I don't think it would be 50-50 either, but it's not unlikely that an Indy would steal votes from both candidates. And how exactly do you know how folks would've voted (or who would've voted) in '68 and '92/'96 without those Indies in the race?

Which special conditions prevailed in 1992 exactly?