No, Democrats, you don't "own" my lefist vote

And, at least unscientifically, within my Twitter group, you're worse at believing you DO "own" such votes than Republicans are with Libertarians or independent conservatives.

A lot worse:

Many Democrats seem to assume that votes of independent and third party leftist and left-liberals should "belong to them." Do Republicans make this assumption as much, more, or less, with Libertarians & independent right-wing voters?

— reallyDonaldTrump  🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) June 16, 2019

Now, of course, this is an unscientific sample, but I think it holds up.

Look at 2012, when Romney ran a fairly close race to Obama. He lost by just under 4 percentage points, and just over 100 electoral votes, a close race.

Let's break it down.

Florida had a gap of less than 1 percentage point in Obama's favor. It's 29 electoral votes. Ohio and its 18 electoral votes, though outside what Libertarian Gary Johnson took, had a gap of less than 3 percent. Virginia and its 13 electoral votes were under 4 percent. Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes were under 4.5 percent. Those 4 give the election to Romney. Or the first three, plus New Hampshire with a 3.6 percent gap, do. Again, this isn't as big a case as idiotic voters in Florida with a ballot designed by a Democrat in 2000, or the non-fraud in Ohio in 2000, but it's not a nothingburger.

But, Romney just moved on. And, Jerry Ford never blamed Clean Gene McCarthy for losing Ohio, and the election, in 1976. (I'm not sure who he drew more votes from, anyway.)

But, you get my point about crying over spilled presidential elections.