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Did Gary Johnson Cost Clinton the 2016 Election?

dcaraz

dcaraz

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In 2016, Gary Johnson ran for the presidency on the Libertarian Party Ticket. He averaged 2.95% of the vote in four states.
If those votes went to Hillary Clinton, Clinton would have won Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Few recall the presidential candidacy of Gary Johnson. But Johnson, running as a libertarian, won nearly 5 million votes nation-wide.
What might have been the result in our last election had Johnson not been on the ballots in several close races?
If Clinton could have won the votes cast for Johnson she would have won :
> Florida's 29 Electoral Votes
> Pennsylvania's 20 Electoral Votes
> Michigan's 16 Electoral Votes
> Wisconsin's 10 Electoral Votes

Had Clinton received Johnson's votes her Electoral College total would have been 307 to Trump's 306.
Could third party candidates determine the outcome in 2020?
 
There is an argument to be had that for a select number of nominally-Democratic voters, that Johnson and Stein reduced Clinton's numbers in key races. However, 3rd party voters tend to be a very rare breed of voter that is not swayed by the major parties beyond a total adaptation of their heterodox platform. In other words, these are ideologues that will, at best, abdicate voting without a 3rd party candidate. Such an outcome may be preferable for either of the major parties, but it is not what they would consider optimal. You cannot look at the vote total for Candidate A, B, C, and D and make the assumption that without C or D all of those votes would go to one of the first two candidates. In short: no, 3rd party candidates did not cost Clinton the election in of themselves.
 
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dcaraz said:
In 2016, Gary Johnson ran for the presidency on the Libertarian Party Ticket. He averaged 2.95% of the vote in four states.
If those votes went to Hillary Clinton, Clinton would have won Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Few recall the presidential candidacy of Gary Johnson. But Johnson, running as a libertarian, won nearly 5 million votes nation-wide.
What might have been the result in our last election had Johnson not been on the ballots in several close races?
If Clinton could have won the votes cast for Johnson she would have won :
> Florida's 29 Electoral Votes
> Pennsylvania's 20 Electoral Votes
> Michigan's 16 Electoral Votes
> Wisconsin's 10 Electoral Votes

Had Clinton received Johnson's votes her Electoral College total would have been 307 to Trump's 306.
Could third party candidates determine the outcome in 2020?
Click to expand...

Not sure why you would think Libertarians would have supported Clinton over Trump but whatever.
 
dcaraz said:
In 2016, Gary Johnson ran for the presidency on the Libertarian Party Ticket. He averaged 2.95% of the vote in four states.
If those votes went to Hillary Clinton, Clinton would have won Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Few recall the presidential candidacy of Gary Johnson. But Johnson, running as a libertarian, won nearly 5 million votes nation-wide.
What might have been the result in our last election had Johnson not been on the ballots in several close races?
If Clinton could have won the votes cast for Johnson she would have won :
> Florida's 29 Electoral Votes
> Pennsylvania's 20 Electoral Votes
> Michigan's 16 Electoral Votes
> Wisconsin's 10 Electoral Votes

Had Clinton received Johnson's votes her Electoral College total would have been 307 to Trump's 306.
Could third party candidates determine the outcome in 2020?
Click to expand...

Bill Weld who is very much more intelligent, knowledgeably and competent than Gary Johnson was, is running against Trump in the election in Nov. I like Bill Weld a lot, he has great experience and a clean track record. He's just a nice guy. Gary Johnson was a numbskull compared to Bill Well who was his running mate.
 
It is very likely that Johnson hurt Trump much more than Clinton. This upcoming election is basically a test on how much people really hate Trump. If Biden shows significant weakness, which I fear he might, a third party candidate really could hurt Biden particularly among independents.
 
dcaraz said:
In 2016, Gary Johnson ran for the presidency on the Libertarian Party Ticket. He averaged 2.95% of the vote in four states.
If those votes went to Hillary Clinton, Clinton would have won Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Few recall the presidential candidacy of Gary Johnson. But Johnson, running as a libertarian, won nearly 5 million votes nation-wide.
What might have been the result in our last election had Johnson not been on the ballots in several close races?
If Clinton could have won the votes cast for Johnson she would have won :
> Florida's 29 Electoral Votes
> Pennsylvania's 20 Electoral Votes
> Michigan's 16 Electoral Votes
> Wisconsin's 10 Electoral Votes

Had Clinton received Johnson's votes her Electoral College total would have been 307 to Trump's 306.
Could third party candidates determine the outcome in 2020?
Click to expand...

I am happy to blame the Libertarian Party for almost anything. But could you explain to me how you can have 613 Electoral votes in an election?
 
what difference does this make — Democrats are being defined early and often by gops right now just as with REDMAP 2010 and Senate 2014 — they’re pissing away the 2018 message —

DzhilStein; a proven % of BB’s —> horseshoe theory; Evan McMullin; faithless electors unresolved by USSC; election security not secure; gerrymandering; voter purges; apathetic and pathetic voter turnout of all the little tents in the Democratic Party —
 
I suspect the following had a bigger impact:

- Hillary's unpopularity
- Hillary's abject failure to campaign in two of the three swings states she needed, also, failure to focus on the third
- Bernie supporters who sat at home, vote third party, or - curse them - the ones that actually voted for Trump
- Comey's announcement of the re-opening of the bull**** investigation just 10 days before the election, costing her points she never recovered

How many of those libertarians are going to vote for a Dem, though? There are left-libertarians but it seems to skew more to the right. Many resemble closeted anarchists. They're more likely to like the conservative message of "small government for the sake of having a small government because government bad", even if the Republicans that run as conservative contradict that ideology with their every act.
 
What cost Hillary the election is 2 days before voters went to the polls the FBI reopened her email case.

Democrats didn't care but many independents who were deciding whether or not to vote Trump or Hillary, voted for Trump because they didn't want to risk electing Hillary only to have her impeached.
 
dcaraz said:
In 2016, Gary Johnson ran for the presidency on the Libertarian Party Ticket. He averaged 2.95% of the vote in four states.
If those votes went to Hillary Clinton, Clinton would have won Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Few recall the presidential candidacy of Gary Johnson. But Johnson, running as a libertarian, won nearly 5 million votes nation-wide.
What might have been the result in our last election had Johnson not been on the ballots in several close races?
If Clinton could have won the votes cast for Johnson she would have won :
> Florida's 29 Electoral Votes
> Pennsylvania's 20 Electoral Votes
> Michigan's 16 Electoral Votes
> Wisconsin's 10 Electoral Votes

Had Clinton received Johnson's votes her Electoral College total would have been 307 to Trump's 306.
Could third party candidates determine the outcome in 2020?
Click to expand...

Silly questions.

Might as well ask..."Did Jill Stein cost Clinton the election?" :roll:

Jill Stein spoiled the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton Jill Stein's voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin helped Donald Trump win the White House.
Click to expand...
Jill Stein spoiled the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton | Salon.com

There are almost always third party candidates who "also-ran" in national elections. They take a few percent of the votes in those States where they have some clout.

But presuming these voters would have voted for your preferred candidate if not for voting 3rd Party is a stretch.

More likely they would have stayed home, not preferring either the Republican or the Democrat candidate IMHO.

Meanwhile? 2016 has been and gone, wishful thinking is not going to change history. :coffeepap:
 
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Nah, he just cost Trump the popular vote. But that's irrelevant anyway.
 
Mr Person said:
I suspect the following had a bigger impact:

- Hillary's unpopularity
- Hillary's abject failure to campaign in two of the three swings states she needed, also, failure to focus on the third
- Bernie supporters who sat at home, vote third party, or - curse them - the ones that actually voted for Trump
- Comey's announcement of the re-opening of the bull**** investigation just 10 days before the election, costing her points she never recovered

How many of those libertarians are going to vote for a Dem, though? There are left-libertarians but it seems to skew more to the right. Many resemble closeted anarchists. They're more likely to like the conservative message of "small government for the sake of having a small government because government bad", even if the Republicans that run as conservative contradict that ideology with their every act.
Click to expand...
I like every word of this, but I might have moved Comey up a bit as a cause. Hillary was never well liked in the first place. She was not an especially warm, endearing sort and she had none of charisma or self effacing nature of an effective television communicator or presence like Bill, or Reagan or even Obama. She had no sense of humor.

One of the reasons I personally think Hillary was rejected , was ironically the scandals/ scandal investigations and the drama that the Clintons always seemed to be surrounded by, were exhausting. It was Whitewater. It was Travelgate. It was Vince Foster's death. It was Paula Jones. It was a blow job and perjury and an impeachment. It was Filegate. It was Benghazi.

It did not matter whether there was fire behind the smoke. It did not matter that Hillary was never indicted on anything. It did not matter whether voters saw the republicans as picking on her or not. They knew that they were sick of breathing in that smoke, tired of it all. And Benghazi Round Two, was just a reminder of what they knew this couple was going to bring into their homes every night because the republicans were determined to tear them down. Clinton fatigue was really Clinton scandal fatigue. it was the drip, drip, drip of Clinton scandals that killed enthusiasm among a lot of voters for bringing them back, not the specifics of Comey's charges.

So they picked Donald Trump! Irony of ironies!
 
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Fiddytree said:
There is an argument to be had that for a select number of nominally-Democratic voters, that Johnson and Stein reduced Clinton's numbers in key races. However, 3rd party voters tend to be a very rare breed of voter that is not swayed by the major parties beyond a total adaptation of their heterodox platform. In other words, these are ideologues that will, at best, abdicate voting without a 3rd party candidate. Such an outcome may be preferable for either of the major parties, but it is not what they would consider optimal. You cannot look at the vote total for Candidate A, B, C, and D and make the assumption that without C or D all of those votes would go to one of the first two candidates. In short: no, 3rd party candidates did not cost Clinton the election in of themselves.
Click to expand...

1. Clinton did not run a great campaign
2. The Electoral College got in the way
3. Voter Suppression was well underway by this time which is how GW and Trump got elected.
4. Too many democrats got fed up with DNC then did not vote.
5. The DNC must go or be ignored = I say never contribute to the DNC!!!!

Nonetheless voters have got to go vote otherwise Trumps and GW's get elected. If we want someone other than the DNC choice millions of voters
must get out to vote with a write in and spell correctly. The DNC, Presidential Debate Committee and the Electoral College are not useful to the
majority of voters. The Electoral College should never be a deciding factor ===== screw the electoral college!

When large numbers turn out to vote moderates win typically and historically.

The GOP has been dead since the day Reagan/Bush got sworn in. ALEC Koch dollars own the GOP name and they are trying to do the democrats in. ALEC Fascism
has no use for Republicans, Democrats, Women and certainly not the Green Party. ALEC Koch Fascists are big spenders not fiscally responsible.

Bill Weld seems like a republican whereas GW and Trump are controlled by radical Right Wingers.....
 
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I think Bill Clinton's Johnson cost Hillary the election.
 
gulfman said:
I think Bill Clinton's Johnson cost Hillary the election.
Click to expand...

I agree with you regarding Gore's loss to GW Bush. But I think Hillary killed her chance by virtue of her perceived persona PLUS a little help from Comey, the DNC, some Russian GRU cyber agents and Bernie being Bernie.
 
btthegreat said:
I like every word of this, but I might have moved Comey up a bit as a cause. Hillary was never well liked in the first place. She was not an especially warm, endearing sort and she had none of charisma or self effacing nature of an effective television communicator or presence like Bill, or Reagan or even Obama. She had no sense of humor.

One of the reasons I personally think Hillary was rejected , was ironically the scandals/ scandal investigations and the drama that the Clintons always seemed to be surrounded by, were exhausting. It was Whitewater. It was Travelgate. It was Vince Foster's death. It was Paula Jones. It was a blow job and perjury and an impeachment. It was Filegate. It was Benghazi.

It did not matter whether there was fire behind the smoke. It did not matter that Hillary was never indicted on anything. It did not matter whether voters saw the republicans as picking on her or not. They knew that they were sick of breathing in that smoke, tired of it all. And Benghazi Round Two, was just a reminder of what they knew this couple was going to bring into their homes every night because the republicans were determined to tear them down. Clinton fatigue was really Clinton scandal fatigue. it was the drip, drip, drip of Clinton scandals that killed enthusiasm among a lot of voters for bringing them back, not the specifics of Comey's charges.

So they picked Donald Trump! Irony of ironies!
Click to expand...

All solid drivers.
 
Razoo said:
1. Clinton did not run a great campaign
2. The Electoral College got in the way
3. Voter Suppression was well underway by this time which is how GW and Trump got elected.
4. Too many democrats got fed up with DNC then did not vote.
5. The DNC must go or be ignored = I say never contribute to the DNC!!!!

Nonetheless voters have got to go vote otherwise Trumps and GW's get elected. If we want someone other than the DNC choice millions of voters
must get out to vote with a write in and spell correctly. The DNC, Presidential Debate Committee and the Electoral College are not useful to the
majority of voters. The Electoral College should never be a deciding factor ===== screw the electoral college!

When large numbers turn out to vote moderates win typically and historically.

The GOP has been dead since the day Reagan/Bush got sworn in. ALEC Koch dollars own the GOP name and they are trying to do the democrats in. ALEC Fascism
has no use for Republicans, Democrats, Women and certainly not the Green Party. ALEC Koch Fascists are big spenders not fiscally responsible.

Bill Weld seems like a republican whereas GW and Trump are controlled by radical Right Wingers.....
Click to expand...

All solid reasons. She ran a terrible campaign most likely assuming she had it sewn up.
 
dcaraz said:
In 2016, Gary Johnson ran for the presidency on the Libertarian Party Ticket. He averaged 2.95% of the vote in four states.
If those votes went to Hillary Clinton, Clinton would have won Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Few recall the presidential candidacy of Gary Johnson. But Johnson, running as a libertarian, won nearly 5 million votes nation-wide.
What might have been the result in our last election had Johnson not been on the ballots in several close races?
If Clinton could have won the votes cast for Johnson she would have won :
> Florida's 29 Electoral Votes
> Pennsylvania's 20 Electoral Votes
> Michigan's 16 Electoral Votes
> Wisconsin's 10 Electoral Votes

Had Clinton received Johnson's votes her Electoral College total would have been 307 to Trump's 306.
Could third party candidates determine the outcome in 2020?
Click to expand...
Why would libertarians vote for Clinton?
 
dcaraz said:
In 2016, Gary Johnson ran for the presidency on the Libertarian Party Ticket. He averaged 2.95% of the vote in four states.
If those votes went to Hillary Clinton, Clinton would have won Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Few recall the presidential candidacy of Gary Johnson. But Johnson, running as a libertarian, won nearly 5 million votes nation-wide.
What might have been the result in our last election had Johnson not been on the ballots in several close races?
If Clinton could have won the votes cast for Johnson she would have won :
> Florida's 29 Electoral Votes
> Pennsylvania's 20 Electoral Votes
> Michigan's 16 Electoral Votes
> Wisconsin's 10 Electoral Votes

Had Clinton received Johnson's votes her Electoral College total would have been 307 to Trump's 306.
Could third party candidates determine the outcome in 2020?
Click to expand...

I doubt it. If anything Johnson took votes away from Trump. Now Jill Stein might have taken some from Hillary. History shows the Libertarians are Republican leaning while the Green Party leans towards the Democrats. If there wasn't any third party candidates in the states you mentioned, Trump's margin would have been larger, not smaller. Hillary lost those states and the general election because independents, the non-affiliated swing voters didn't like her. They disliked her more than they disliked Trump. On election day among independents and independents only, Trump was viewed favorable by 40% of them, unfavorable by 57%. Hillary, independents viewed her 27% favorable, 70% unfavorable. Questions 10 and 11.

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/l37rosbwjp/econTabReport_lv.pdf

History shows folks usually don't vote for someone they dislike. But what if they disliked both major party candidates? They vote third party or stay home, in fact 12% of all independents did exactly that, voted third party against both candidates.

https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls

Trump won the White House because he won the independent vote nationwide, 46-42 over Hillary with 12% voting third party. 9 million people voted against both Trump and Clinton.

In Pennsylvania independents went to Trump 48-41 with 7% voting for Johnson and 3% for Stein.
In Wisconsin independents voted for Trump 50-40 over Hillary with 6% voting for Johnson and 2% for Stein.
In Michigan independents voted for Trump 52-36 over Hillary with 7% voting for Johnson and 3% for Stein.
In Florida independents voted for Trump 47-43 over Hillary with 5% voting for Johnson and 2% for Stein.

Hillary's problem was she ceded the campaign trail to Trump. From 1 Sep 2016 through 8 Nov 2016 Trump made 116 campaign visits, stops, rallies to Hillary's 71. That 71 looks larger than what it was as it includes fund raisers in deep blue California and New York. Look at the deciding states, Wisconsin, five visits, stops, rallies for Trump to none for Hillary. In Michigan it was Trump six, Hillary one. Pennsylvania was closer, 8 for trump 5 for Hillary. even in electoral vote rich Florida, Hillary ceded the campaign trail there to Trump also, 13 visits, stops, rallies for trump, 8 for Clinton.

Fact is if Johnson supporters had to vote in a two candidate race, most would have went to Trump, Hillary would have gained most of Jill Stein's. Advantage Trump.

I wouldn't blame Johnson, I'd blame Hillary for ceding the campaign trail. Perhaps even Sanders supporters. The Democratic base or those who identify with the Democratic Party voted for Hillary 89-8 over Trump with 3% voting third party. Sanders supporters did vote for Hillary, but by a 75-12 margin over Trump with a whopping 13% voting third party. Who knows how many of Sanders supporters stayed home?

Bernie Sanders Voters Helped Trump Win and Here's Proof

Then there was CNN's exit polling which asked the question of third party voters who would they have voted for only in a two candidate race, no third party candidates. 19% answered Trump, 16% Clinton, the rest said they wouldn't have voted.

One other thing, in Feb 2016 a poll showed that 56% of all Americans wanted the Democratic Party to nominate someone other than Hillary Clinton. The Democratic Party faithful didn't listen to all of America which was their right, no doubt about that. It's Democrats who decide their candidate, not America as a whole. But all of America decide the general election, not just Democrats.

I'm one of those who voted for Johnson. My disgust for both major party candidates made me go to the polls and vote against both Trump and Clinton as I wanted my vote against both of them officially registered. If I had been forced to choose between Trump and Clinton with no other option, I'd have stayed home or wrote in a vote for Mr. None of the Above. Even knowing what I know today, I'd still vote against both Trump and Clinton.
 
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