As the dust settles on the Presidential election many are searching for answers to how, and why, Donald Trump won the Presidency. Many are making the argument against the Electoral College, since Clinton seems to have won the popular vote, as the major reason. However, there are many that are trying to blame the third party candidates for taking away votes that would have gone to Clinton.
From the Mic:
If you voted for a third-party candidate in 2016, congratulations! You played a major, if not decisive, role in helping Donald Trump become the next president of the United States.
In almost every swing state where the race was close, both Gary Johnson and Jill Stein’s share of the vote would have been enough to sway the election to Hillary Clinton.
In Florida, nearly 204,000 people voted for Johnson, and more than 63,000 voted for Stein, according to the New York Times.
Even if Clinton won just half of those 267,000 voters, that would have been enough for her to overtake Trump’s 132,000-vote win.
From CNN:
Trump stood 68,236 votes ahead of Clinton, with 99% of the vote in Wednesday evening. The total support for Johnson and Stein was 191,565 — almost three times Trump’s margin of victory. CNN projected a Trump victory here.
If half of Johnson’s supporters and all of Stein’s supporters had voted Clinton, it would have flipped the state.
Let’s start with this. There is no guarantee that third party votes would have gone to Clinton. It is safe to assume that most Gary Johnson voters would tend to lean more towards Trump and Stein voters more towards Clinton.
Many in both of these camps would say they would not have voted for either candidate and therefore the point is moot.
The blame lies in many places, like low turnout by Democrats, and other examples, but it does not fall onto the third party candidates. We voted for somebody we believed in and thought would make a great President, and that is valuable.
Democrats need to look deeper into why they lost and Trump won. It has nothing to do with us, it has everything to do with them. They chose a corrupt candidate that was unpopular and nothing more.
