As American voters have become more firmly entrenched in their party affiliations, fewer and fewer states are in contention and the margins of victory are increasingly slim. This year, polls suggest that in the handful of swing states that will determine the race, the winner could be decided by a razor-thin margin. Votes for third party candidates could be enough to tip the election – most likely, in favor of Donald Trump.
Third parties are typically minor players in US presidential elections. It is nearly impossible for them to compete with the juggernaut of the Democratic and Republican Party establishments, their massive funding operations, legal teams, and operational infrastructure across all fifty states. The exception have been elections like Bush v. Gore in 2000 when the race came down to a single electoral vote and votes for the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader almost certainly helped throw the election to Bush—or like Clinton v. Trump in 2016, when votes for the Green Party candidate Jill Stein may have helped to determine the outcome in key battleground states.
But as American voters have become more firmly entrenched in their party affiliations, fewer and fewer states are in contention and the margins of victory are increasingly slim. This year, polls suggest that in the handful of swing states that will determine the race, the winner could be decided by a razor-thin margin. Votes for third party candidates could be enough to tip the election – most likely, in favor of Donald Trump.
US Green Party candidate Jill Stein may play a decisive role
This year, votes for the US Green Party could once again tip the scales against the Democratic candidate. Unlike its European counterparts, the US Green Party is not an influential actor in the American political landscape. Many Americans are not aware that the country has a Green Party and its lead candidate, Jill Stein, regularly polls with less than 50% name recognition. Faced with the structural barriers of a winner-take-all system, the US Green Party currently hold no seats in state legislatures or Congress, and claim only a handful of elected offices in cities and towns across the country. Unlike some other third parties that have steadily gained representation at the local level, such as the Working People’s Party in New York or the Democratic Socialists of America, the Green Party has largely failed to build a successful movement and its membership has declined since its peak in 2004.
Internationally, the party is in conflict with Green parties in other parts of the world. Though it shares aspects of the international green movement’s climate and social policy agenda, it also advocates for foreign policy positions that echo Kremlin narratives, calling for disbanding NATO and for the US to “stop fueling the war between Russia and Ukraine.”
After the 2016 election, the European Greens harshly criticized Stein, describing her campaign as “an embarrassment” and “a source of great shame” for helping to contribute to Trump’s election. The now-former Co-Chair of the European Green Party, Reinhard Bütikofer, publicly condemned Stein for suggesting that Hillary Clinton was more likely to lead the world into nuclear war than Trump, suggesting that the two were equally dangerous, and allowing the US Green Party to become a tool of Russian election interference. After early efforts at dialogue and cooperation, by 2016, a host of international Green voices began calling on the party to change its leadership, describing her points as “delusional.” Stein became such an outcast in the global Green movement that by 2017 she was prevented from playing any active role in the Global Greens Conference in Liverpool.
This year, the European Greens effectively ignored Stein’s candidacy and proactively endorsed Harris for president, describing her as the “reliable partner” with the best chance to advance green priorities. Yet despite all warnings and criticism from international green parties, the fact remains that Stein and the US Green Party are again positioned to play a decisive role at the cost of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
The US Green Party is capitalizing on voters’ frustration with the Biden-Harris Administration’s policy on Israel-Gaza
Stein has fashioned herself as the mouthpiece for voters who are disaffected with the political support and military aid that the Biden-Harris Administration continues to provide to the Netanyahu government. Since the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, the ensuing war in Gaza and now the broader region, the majority of Democratic voters are for the first time more sympathetic toward Palestinians than Israelis. A historic grassroots mobilization of Democratic voters now question the bipartisan consensus on the special US relationship with Israel. As of June 2024, nearly 70% of Democrats disapproved of Israeli military actions in Gaza, putting them starkly at odds with the Administration. For a small, but potentially decisive, number of these voters, the issue will determine how they cast their ballot.
During the primary elections, the state-by-state contests where voters choose their party’s nominee, the Uncommitted Movement organized Democratic voters to mark their ballots as “uncommitted” instead of for Biden, warning the president that he could lose their vote in the general election. In the key swing state of Michigan--which has the largest Arab Muslim American population in the country--the movement won a sizable 13% of the vote. Uncommitted demands a permanent ceasefire, an end to unconditional military aid to Israel, and a path to Palestinian statehood. Though its organizers have recommended against a third party vote, they have also refused to endorse Harris or Trump--creating a permission structure for its supporters to sit out the election.
The US Green Party has captured the momentum of this protest movement by coming out forcefully against the administration’s policy on Israel-Palestine. Stein, who is Jewish, calls for “the US government [to] stop supporting the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.” In interviews, she has said that, as president, she would end all military aid to Israel until it ceases its war effort and ends its occupation of all territories beyond the 1967 borders. Her stance has won her the endorsement of groups like “Abandon Harris” that openly seek to punish the administration for its ongoing support of Israel’s war effort.
Voter discontent over the massive sums of military aid sent to both Ukraine and Israel is also increasingly becoming an issue at both ends of the political spectrum. On social media, voices from the right and the left question the billions that are sent abroad--the issue has become particularly acute as the US faces catastrophic damage from Hurricanes Helene and Milton just weeks before the election.
Promotion of Stein was a key pillar of the Kremlin’s 2016 election interference campaign against Hillary Clinton
In a signal both of the Democratic Party’s growing exasperation and concern, Democratic strategists are increasingly sounding the alarm over Stein’s candidacy. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went viral in early September with a social media post describing Stein’s presidential bid as “predatory”: “if you have been your party’s nominee for 12 years in a row…and you cannot grow your movement, pretty much at all, and you can’t pursue any successful strategy and all you do is show up every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off, you’re not serious.”
A spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) recently called Jill Stein “a useful idiot for Russia,” echoing the criticism of the European Greens. Stein has come under significant legal scrutiny in recent years for her dubious relationship to Russia and Vladimir Putin. Not only has Stein downplayed Putin’s authoritarian tendencies and promoted the idea that NATO expansion is to blame for Russian aggression in Ukraine; in December 2015, Stein herself also traveled to Russia as a presidential candidate to attend a conference by the Russian television and propaganda network RT. She even recorded a campaign video in Moscow’s Red Square in which she described the “inspiring” conversations and decried “a US policy of domination”. Stein is also known to have attended a 10th anniversary dinner for RT, where she reportedly sat next to Putin and Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security advisor who was forced to resign after Justice Department investigations revealed undisclosed calls with senior Russian government officials.
Reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2018 and 2019 found that the promotion of third-party candidates--with messages like “A Vote for Jill Stein is Not a Wasted Vote”--was a key pillar of the Kremlin’s 2016 election interference campaign against Hillary Clinton. Democrats are quick to point out that in the all-important states of Michigan and Wisconsin, Stein’s 2016 vote count was bigger than Trump’s margin of victory. In recent days, Democratic strategists have pointed to statements by Stein’s supporters at campaign events that openly acknowledge that their goal is to deny Harris the White House and have argued that her 2024 presidential campaign is yet another foreign-influence campaign.
Other controversies abound: videos of Stein failing to answer basic questions about the functioning of the US government have gone viral in Democratic social media. There are also numerous media reports of Stein working with GOP operatives and legal firms in her bid to get on state ballots. In early October, the DNC released a new ad revealing just how concerned the campaign is about Stein voters; it shows Trump praising Stein because “She takes 100% from them” and warns voters that, “A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.”
Yet, it remains to be seen if voters care. Many voters who choose Stein are not seeking a credible candidate for president or even to boost a party whose politics they share. It’s not clear that they care if foreign actors are boosting Stein for their own purposes. Rather, these will be strategic votes against Harris, designed to send a resounding and unified message of disapproval to the Democratic Party over its perceived moral failure in Gaza.
Harris could lose key swing states to the protest vote
The impact of this protest vote could credibly tip the election against Harris. Among the 2.5 million Muslim American voters, both Stein and Harris are polling at just under 30%. Stein currently leads Harris with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Arizona (35% to 29%), Michigan (40% to 12%), and Wisconsin (44% to 39%), and tallies sizable portions of the Muslim vote in Pennsylvania and Georgia.
In 2020, Biden won Michigan by only 154,000 votes; in 2024, the Uncommitted Movement, composed of Muslim voters, but also in substantial numbers of young, Latino, and African American voters, won more than 100,000 votes in the primary. It is entirely plausible that Harris could lose one of these states--and thereby, the election--by less than the number of votes that go to Stein and other third party candidates.
Other third party candidates could also tilt the race
The US Green Party is not the only third party in this election. For decades, Americans have felt frustrated with the two-party system and a majority would like to see a viable third party to better represent the diversity of views across the country.
Early in the election, widespread disaffection with both major parties led to a surge in support from across the political spectrum for the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an heir to the Kennedy political dynasty, and an environmental lawyer and activist who has dabbled in right-wing conspiracy theories. Though he ultimately ended his campaign and endorsed Trump, his name remains on the ballot in 33 states, including the closely contested states of Wisconsin and Michigan. In Michigan, where Trump and Harris are neck and neck, he is polling at nearly 5%. Together with the Green protest vote, votes for RFK Jr. could make a real difference.
Other candidates like the celebrity academic Cornel West and Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver will likely be less significant. They play a more traditional third-party role, offering an alternative for voters who don’t find a home in either of the two big parties and would likely not consider voting for either.
West is best known to many Americans as a prominent academic, a moral voice on racial justice, and an outspoken supporter of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. At quick glance, he shares many characteristics with Stein, from his affiliation with Harvard University, where he was a professor, and a policy platform that overlaps with the US Green Party, to questionable public alliances and reports that his campaign has accepted funding and legal support from GOP operatives. He is running without a party affiliation, significantly hampering his efforts to get on the ballot in most of the country. However, his name will appear on ballots in the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, it’s safe to assume that most of the country has never heard of Chase Oliver, the Libertarian Party candidate, but he will be on the ballot in every swing state in 2024. Though unlikely to have an impact nationally, Oliver is positioned to play a role in his home state of Georgia, where he is projected to win more votes than the likely margin of victory. His emphasis on small government and individual liberties is most likely to appeal to moderate Republican and independent voters who find Trump and Vance too extreme. This could concern the Harris campaign, which has crossed party lines to seek the endorsements of anti-Trump Republicans like Liz Cheney and is vying to win over precisely those Republicans who do not see themselves in the MAGA movement.
The 2024 election could be decided by a few tens of thousands of voters
For the vast majority of American voters, the issues of the economy, preserving democracy, reproductive rights, and immigration will determine their vote in November. Harris appears to be making slow but steady progress in winning over the general electorate, with more voters now perceiving her as the “change” candidate. But if Harris loses by a slim margin in November, there will be many pointing the finger at those third-party candidates who garnered enough votes to make a difference. It is entirely possible that in a country of more than 330 million people, the 2024 election could be decided by a few tens of thousands of voters in states like Michigan and Wisconsin—and it is an open question if they will be more persuaded by Stein’s campaign to serve as a voice of protest against the Administration’s policy in Gaza or by Harris’ promise to safeguard American democracy against a second Trump presidency.
