2 Weeks to Election Day: Could Third-Party Candidates Tilt the Race?

With just over two weeks until Election Day, the conversation has been largely focused on Democratic and Republican nominees Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, though third-party candidates on the ballot could affect the race as well.

Libertarians, Greens: An analysis from The New York Times (Lean Left bias) shows where third-party candidates will be on the ballot. Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver will be on the ballot in all but three states, while Green candidate Jill Stein will be on the ballot in 37. Most notably, Stein will be absent from one of the Times’ seven listed battleground states, Nevada. 

Independents: Independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West will both be on the ballot in several states as well. Though he endorsed Trump and aimed to remove himself from all battleground states’ ballots, Kennedy will still be on in Michigan and Wisconsin, where the states’ courts have ruled he cannot be removed. West will be on in those two as well, in addition to the Carolinas.

'Spoiler' Effect?: The Times notes that the presence of third-party candidates could take votes away from either Harris or Trump and tilt the scales in battleground states. Recent reports from The Daily Mail (Right bias) and Newsweek (Center bias) cite a new poll from Noble Predictive that shows Harris leading Trump by two percentage points without Stein in the race and three when she’s included. The Mail wrote, “If this polling is correct, it goes against Stein's stated goal and prediction of denying Harris the presidency and what Democrat officials have publicly stated.”