Some non-twosider election wrap thoughts, starting with third parties

Cross-posted in moderately shorter version at Substack.

Per the header, and per my voting, we’re going to start at looking at the two third parties in America, the Greens and Libertarians. (Per my verbiage, and that of at least some political scientists, the other parties are “minor parties.”)

And we’re going to start with that subhed.

I’ve not seen the national numbers yet, but here in Texas, yes, the Libertarian party imploded indeed.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein finished ahead of the Libertarian nominee, Chase Oliver. Yes, you read that right.

Stein took 0.73 percent to Oliver's 0.6 percent.

In 2020, Libertarian Jo Jorgensen took 1.12 percent in Texas to Howie Hawkins’ 0.30 percent. The ratio was the same in 2016, and in 2012, with both parties much higher in 2016 because it wasn’t in the middle of COVID, which hurt third parties and minor parties, and it wasn’t apocalyptically shaded by both duopoly parties.

Then, it was 3.16 percent for Gary Johnson vs 0.80 percent for Stein. In 2012, without many voters thinking Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were as crappy as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, it was 1.1 percent Johnson, 0.3 percent Stein, here in Texas.

Average 2012 and 2016 and you get 0.55 percent. Stein outperformed that, despite being a three-time retread with investment ethics problems. Side note: Yes, she whiffed on not knowing the exact number of Members of Congress. And? AOC constitutionally whiffed on wanting to cut Congresscritter pay during a shutdown. Take that, #BlueAnon.

Do that same averaging for Libertarians and you’re at 2.13 percent. Oliver MASSIVELY underperformed that.

I suspect the Mises Mice cuck-up in the Libertarian Party has borne fruit. I have yet to see national numbers, but, I have another state number to reflect that.

Here in Texas, the Greens had just one statewide candidate besides Stein. Eddie Espinoza was running for a spot on the Railroad Commission of Texas. Libertarians also had a candidate, Hawk Dunlap.

Both finished well ahead of their parties’ presidential nominees, but the main comparative takeaway is that Espinoza had 2.75 percent to Dunlap’s 2.6 percent.

The second main takeaway is that, under the stipulations of a 2021 Texas Legislature bill pushed by state Sen. Drew Springer, that requires third parties to break 2 percent in a statewide vote once every five cycles to keep statewide ballot access, Greens, instead of facing a do-or-die in 2026, are now good through 2032.

Will they get a better gubernatorial candidate in 2026? That remains to be seen. They had Brandon Parmer the non-candidate in 2014, ran nobody in 2018, and had gun nut, antivaxxer and more Delilah Barrios in 2022. (I think I held my nose and voted Parmer in 2014; with no Green, I undervoted in 2018; I undervoted in 2022.)

For that matter, will the GP national get a better presidential candidate in 2028? The list of candidates a year ago, at the time the party recruited Cornel West, sucked canal water. (And, given the reality of Cornel West, that “sucked canal water” includes him.) Before Stein bit the bullet / decided to pay off 2016 FEC-incurred debt, and after West stepped aside, no “names” like Margaret Flowers or Matthew Hoh stepped forward.

Nationally, confirming possible LP meltdown? At Ballot Access News, Winger says the Georgia LP lost state ballot access, falling below 1 percent on the presidential vote. (To be clear, that's 1 percent of actual voters in a presidential election, not 1 percent of registered voters.) Let us not forget that Chase Oliver is FROM Georgia. And, as part of that, let us note that Stein was nearly even with Oliver there. Considering the old Georgia GP getting the boot after 2020, and related issues, for these results to have Oliver at just 0.39 percent, and Stein to be close at 0.35 percent? Horrible, on the Libertarian side. 

Here in Tex-ass, maybe legacy media focusing on Stein gave her a boost. But, in Georgia, a swing state and the post-2020 fallout I noted? No, that's on the LP. That's implosion.

Also, as mentioned in an email discussion with Jordan from IPR? The Libertarian Party's national convention flirtation with Trump probably contributed to the implosion. While it may not have been totally driven by the Mises Mice, it certainly was in part. The New Hampshire LP's early-on actual endorsement of Trump was also an underminer. All the other shenanigans, both by LP National's board and by some state parties, after the convention only added to this. (I will have a follow-up whenever Wikipedia or somebody likes that gets us the nationwide third-party vote count so I can compare to 2020 and 2016.)

I can't help but think that, even though they didn't do as I thought and run a presidential candidate in states where they had a party line ballot access, either directly or indirectly, that the newly formed Liberal Party has plenty of room to build.

Update, Nov. 18: Wikipedia doesn't yet have a state-by state breakout, but with 98 percent of the estimated national vote counted as of this time, we can confirm a Libertarian implosion, per Wikipedia's 2024 presidential election page when contrasted with its 2020 page. Oliver got ONE-THIRD of what Jo Jorgenson got in 2020. And, within this election, he only got 80 percent of Stein's numbers.

As for why? It's of course speculation on the Mises Mice angle. But, it's reasonable and informed speculation based on everything that happened at the LP national convention and after. That includes the Trump dalliance by the Mice at the convention and after, the similar dalliance with Brainworm Bobby, state parties dumping Oliver from their states' presidential ballots and more.

Again, I can't think but that the Liberal Party has room to grow.

Emailing some sites, Richard Winger responded to me from Ballot-Access News. His only comment was to clarify/correct hat for ballot access, Georgia law is 1 percent of registered voters, not 1 percent of people voting in a particular election. (I have clarified, but, Richard chose not to comment on Libertarian turnout and support issues other than to say the LP plans on addressing ballot access issue for the next election.)

Update, Nov. 22: More Greens than Libertarians, 20 versus 18, won nonpartisan elections, per Winger.

Update, Dec. 5: Since the man technically head honcho at BAN, Bill Redpath, is the LNC's treasurer, and a previous national chair, maybe BAN has a vested interest in not commenting? 

Update, Dec. 6: I emailed the LP for comment, and have yet to hear back.

==

To the duopoly-focused side now.

There will be a separate piece on the “blame game” for Democrats at the national level coming up.  Various Democratic intelligentsia are already talking about some failures (and unsheathing long knives for internecine warfare in some cases), while ignoring a whole set of more obvious failures.

One observation, from a note I posted last night, to whet the appetite on that?

One interesting issue is that this election WAS like 1968 in many ways, despite Dems trying to avoid a Chicago repeat. (It’s too bad there weren’t actual protests this time around when Harris and the DNC stiffed Palestinian supporters.)

You have a sitting Veep trying to succeed a one-term Prez who stepped down less than willfully, with the Veep not removing themselves from the president’s shadow. That said, Harris more willingly stayed in line with Biden than Humphrey did with LBJ. That also said, other things aside, the Hump was a better candidate.

Three other observations?

First, Allan Lichtman’s 13 Keys, discussed in my busted prediction of last Saturday, is officially garbage. That said, he’s repeatedly claimed that he actually got 2000 right but Bush v Gore made him wrong. However, he refuses to admit that only the Electoral College made him right in 2016. So, in reality? From 2000-2024, he has a half-right, three rights, a half-right, a right and a wrong. That makes him five for seven.

Second, that Des Moines Register poll claiming Harris was up 3 points among likely voters in Iowa? Obviously, it was totally broken. Interestingly, in multiple “red” states, including Religious Right, but not libertarian, red-state Missouri, abortion protection state constitutional amendments and referendums PASSED. And, support for these issues translated not one bit into support for Harris or state-level statewide Democratic candidates. This type of ticket-splitting, voting for the party that put you in the position where you pass a referendum to contain them? Innnnteresting. Update: NPR talks to a few of these "ticket-splitters."

Pollster J. Ann Selzer said "I'll be reviewing data" after that total bust. She does note what I noted in my busted prediction, that she had neither candidate above 50 percent.

Also, per a number of other pollsters, at this Beeb piece, Selzer doesn't do any "modeling," other than polling likely voters. Had I known that, I would have been more skeptical when I first saw it.

Third? People who I didn’t think would go in BlueAnon attack mode have. I originally was going to run that as part of the cross-post at Substack, just like the first sentence in this paragraph, then thought of an ellipsis-truncated version, then ran nothing. Here, I'm running it, but adding the name of Ken Silverstein.

Fourth? Lots of commenters at Kuff are in denialism about Gaza. And, ConservaDems like Greg Summerlin are just nutters in general. No, Greg, there's no need to comment here any more; I refudiated all your past wrongness.