Building on Adam’s thread on Kanye West (not a sentence I expected to write this year), I wanted to look at the spoiler effect of a third party candidate in a first past the post election. We don’t have great data on that counterfactual, but I think that we can look at Maine’s 2nd Congressional District election in 2018 to get some idea of what percentage of not-first-two party vote is persuadable to vote for one of the two major parties.
Maine using Ranked Choice Voting for its federal elections. A voter sees all the candidates who are running and ranks them from 1 to the number of candidates. The voter has a choice to stop ranking at any point. If there is no clear majority winner in the first round, the ballots of the candidate who received the fewest 1st choice votes are re-allocated on the basis of the second choice. This repeats until there is a clear majority winner.
Maine’s 2nd District went to a RCV run-off in 2018. The first round had the Republican incumbent hold a tiny plurality lead. The Democratic challenger won after the run-off. That is not the interesting part. The interesting part is this paragraph from the Portland Press Herald on the 3rd and 4th choice candidates:
In the end, Golden gained 10,232 votes from the ranked-choice retabulations and Poliquin gained 4,695 votes. That 5,537-vote edge allowed Golden to overcome Poliquin’s 2,632-vote lead. Roughly 8,000 of the ballots cast for the independents did not designate an additional choice or did not select either of the major-party candidates.
Roughly 8,000 out of almost 23,000 minor party voters did not choose a major party candidate. These folks were mobilized specifically for the minor party candidate. However over three fifths of the minor party voters were okay with at least one of the major party candidates. We can assume that most of them would likely have voted for a major party candidate in a first past the post system.
So what does that mean?
Some fraction of a third party candidate’s vote is never in play for a major party candidate. However a decent to large chunk of it is in play. And an ideological or identity based third party candidate is going get most of the in-play voters from the major party closest to it. So, a spoiler candidate is likely to get some small percentage of idiosyncratic voters who were never in play and then a good size sliver of voters from the major party closest to it. Looking at Maine, the 2nd District results had a net swing of about 1.8% which in a close race was a decisive swing.
NeenerNeener
I interpret this to mean Kanye will pull votes from Trump, since he’s really identified with the republicans. At least I hope that’s what it means.
gwangung
@NeenerNeener: Certainly that would happen with Black voters. That’d how they’d identify him.
Baud
The assumption is that voter turnout and choices aren’t affected by the voting system used.
Still, interesting.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Why can we assume that? In a first past the post election they still might have voted for the 3rd party candidate.
guachi
I’ve looked at the ME-2 results, as well, when I was talking with some Libertarian supporter awhile back. Even where you could vote for a 3rd party candidate as your first choice with no repercussion AND in a state that had no problem giving Perot his highest vote total in 1992 still didn’t vote too much for 3rd party candidates.
debbie
What’s Kanye’s platform?
Frankensteinbeck
I don’t think this is applicable data. A ranked choice election and a first-past-the-post election are significantly different phenomena. You can’t know how many of the ‘only third party’ voters came out only because they felt they had more of a chance, and whether there would be any flexibility in the ‘voted major party second’ voters in a regular first-past-the-post election. One reasonable, even likely interpretation would be that those voters would not feel free to potentially throw their vote away, and in a regular election would all vote for a major party.
Citizen_X
@debbie: Help Trump win.
Whether he, himself, is aware of it or not.
Bex
So is Trump going to have a “press conference” from Bedminster? Paging Adam…what’s up?
debbie
@Citizen_X:
I can’t imagine who he thinks will vote for him.
Baud
@debbie:
Hipster cool kids who want to stick it to the man.
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
If Kanye had a platform at all, I’d be really surprised.
Baud
I don’t mind the idea of thinking about improving the voting system. What I don’t like are people who think changing the voting system will make certain policy outcomes more attainable.
Mary G
@Bex: Distraction from a Friday news dump?
debbie
@Baud:
He’s less qualified than Trump, which I would never have thought possible.
patrick II
@Citizen_X:
He’s aware of it. He half admitted to it in a recent interview. Which makes me like him even less. No platform so the reason he is running is to help Trump by taking away some small portion of the black vote. Which means he is very self-consciously using his blackness to con black voters. Whether he succeeds or not is another question.
It’s not that unusual in the Republican party where there are enough white guys using their whiteness to con white voters.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@patrick II:
That to me makes me believe that, mental illness or no, he’s a bad person. He’s gotten help before and chosen to refuse treatment
Redshift
Rachel Bitecofer seems to think the main threat (and purpose) of the Kanye candidacy is, like Jill Stein, to give people who don’t want to vote for Biden a non-Trump alternative that helps Trump. There’s a reason GOP operatives are filing his paperwork, and only in states that may be tight enough that it could make a difference.
West of the Rockies
And we’re back to Kanye… Oye.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@patrick II:
Well, that’s what Republicans think.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
He’s been institutionalized.
artem1s
@debbie:
there are a fair amount of pompous, self absorbed, tragically hip folks who think that the whole voting and government thing is a joke. They simultaneously believe that their one vote is all that matters (just their one vote, not everyones vote) and that voting is also a waste of time. They do it so they can sit around the coffee shop and bars and laugh at the sheeple who do the establishment’s bidding. I knew lots of them when I was in grad school. Mostly privileged white boys who had managed to be born too late to have to worry about Vietnam. Who grew up in nice white suburbs but styled themselves as in-the-know activists and deep thinkers. We called them posers back in my day.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Redshift: I don’t even get the logic of that, they were never going to vote for Biden anyway, so how does that help Trump? I just don’t see Kanye moving any votes from Biden.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yes, and he’s been stabilized before with medication, has he not? He’s then chosen to not take medication that could help him. Of course, people have a right to not take their medication. But I think this is just as much a reflection of his true values as his mental illness
artem1s
@patrick II:
back in 2016 the GOP trotted out Don King for a Trump rally in East Cleveland. I honestly didn’t know that fucker was still alive. Kanye is a younger version.
Roger Moore
I’m not sure how safe an assumption this is. I think there are some voters who clearly have a preference between the major party candidates but who vote for third party candidates as a form of self expression/protest. I don’t think you’re going to know how many people who voted for a third party candidate would have voted for a major party candidate if they were in a first-past-the-post system without actually interviewing them.
A Good Woman
Kanye won’t be on the IL ballot. Lost a petition challenge on the number of valid signatures. IL may seem safe, but I take nothing for granted.
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
This is very common for a lot of kinds of medication for mental illness. I think it’s especially common for people with bipolar disorder, who feel like they’re accomplishing so much during their manic phases they don’t want to take a medication that would slow them down.
Brachiator
In a ranked choice system, there might be one or more candidates who I absolutely detest, and would like to mark as “under no circumstance.” But these candidates would stand a reasonable chance of winning.
And in a traditional election, a runoff might lead me to re-evaluate the top candidates. If a candidate I detested ended up in the runoff, I would vote for his or her opponent.
Hoodie
Remember Obama calling Kanye a jackass a few years back? I think this is mostly republicans thinking black people are stupid and would be swayed by a nutcase like Kanye simply because he’s black and well known.. It will likely just bring out some dipsticks who would otherwise not vote and/or move the microscopic number of blacks who vote for Trump over to Kanye. In other words, a wash or even a net loss for Trump.
snoey
@Roger Moore: I think Ted Turner admitted to that.
Roger Moore
@snoey:
Bipolar people going off their meds when they’re in a manic phase is common enough one of the drug companies made a TV ad warning about this. I know there are other mental health drugs that have really bad compliance because of their side effects. ISTR medications for schizophrenia have notoriously poor compliance because they make users feel mentally fuzzy.
trnc
Makes sense. Stein was nominally a liberal, so she pulled votes mainly from the establishment liberal. Kanye doesn’t identify as a democrat, so I can’t imagine many dems would vote for him as a protest vote against Biden. Furthermore, the Green Party is a well established political party. The Birthday (seriously!?!) Party is not.
I don’t ever want to underestimate the stupidity of millions of voters, but I don’t how Kanye 2020 equals Stein 2016.
patrick Il
geg6
@Hoodie:
Every Trumper I know is crowing over this. They are sure that every Black person in America will absolutely vote for Kanye. They truly, fervently believe this.
geg6
@Roger Moore:
My oldest brother was bipolar. He couldn’t comply with his meds until he was dying from cancer and had little choice in the matter. It didn’t help that he was a pharmacy major in college (didn’t finish, as you might expect someone with undiagnosed bipolar) and had been in a medical unit in the Navy (before he went AWOL and was discharged). Kanye rings all the bells of off the meds bipolar to me.
Hildebrand
Once again, I think folks seem to be working pretty hard to miss the fact that things are bloody well different this year – a pandemic, a cratering economy, and a roiling social crisis built on institutional and structural racism, all of it brought to a boil due to the incompetence, bigotry, and knavery of the current administration and governing party. This isn’t 2016, it’s not even 2018.
Yes, many aspects of elections (especially concerning the interference angle) are still salient. That does not mean this election is going to be at all typical. They want compassion. They want competence. They want stability. The number of folks going for the functional equivalent of writing in Mickey Mouse are going to be few and far between.
Yes, Trump and his fellow hacks are working overtime to depress the vote, to suppress the vote, but I don’t think we are in the same situation as four years ago, and we had best recognize that fact and not keep fighting the last battle.
Our nominee isn’t a Clinton – which means the irrational hatred of the Clintons will not be in play (and that cannot be dismissed). And no matter the VP, misogyny will not be as prevalent an issue as 2016.
Let’s freak about the things that are actually worth freaking out about – Kanye West isn’t one of them.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@geg6:
The fact that GOP operatives are helping him file petitions in certain states and Kanye has pretty much admitted his candidacy is aimed at helping Trump win would only serve as further evidence that the election is illegitimate if margins were close enough in states that Trump won and Kanye was also on the ballot, wouldn’t it?
Couldn’t the Democratic House refuse to certify the election on these grounds, among others?
Hildebrand
@geg6: I am the pastor of an African-American church in Detroit – there isn’t a single person in my congregation who doesn’t make fun of, or have pity for, Kanye. No one is even remotely considering voting for him, and they don’t know anybody who would even consider it. They find the whole thing to be another example of Republican racism.
Aleta
https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/if-kanye-somehow-stays-in-the-presidential-race-itll-h-1844648900
gwangung
@Hildebrand: Which is why any shaving done by West isn’t going to be in the Black community. Might attract some wrong headed white progressives. Or even some nominally Trump voting folks.
But Black folks? Nah.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aleta:
Joe Biden has been looking in the mirror first thing each morning for the past 35 years and saying “President Biden”.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@gwangung: Maybe cut in the small group of Black Trump voters.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, a lot of psych meds can have some nasty and unpleasant side effects which makes compliance problematic
Dan B
@Hildebrand: It seems like Kanye is more likely to draw from his mostly white fan boi’s. He may draw a few young black guys but a very small number. It may tip the election in a couple states but not very likely.
oatler.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
unedited footage of a bear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gMjJNGg9Z8
Frankensteinbeck
@Hildebrand: and @Aleta:
I am whiter than Ronald Mcdonald and I knew this. The idea that Kanye will peel even a shred of black voters away from Biden is based entirely on racism. He has nothing to offer Biden voters.
Frankensteinbeck
@Dan B: The thing about tipping states is that you don’t ask if anyone will vote for Kanye. SOMEONE will vote for any candidate. You ask if more people who would have voted for Biden will vote for Kanye than people who would have voted for Trump. The answer here is blatantly that Kanye has a tiny attraction for Trump voters and no attraction for Biden voters. He has damned little attraction for anyone, but what speck of votes he gets will sure as Hell not be a net loss for Biden.
Aleta
A thing to yell about, from the late Fri. news dump:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/07/postal-service-investigation-dejoy/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_postal-155pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans&tidr=a_breakingnews
Even post office managers weren’t informed of this reorganization until this afternoon. My acquaintance says it means “The post office as we know it is gone,” and has no doubt that this action is about voting.
Since Rs and Libert’s have been working on destroying the post office for a while, some dismantled parts were never coming back no matter who gets elected. But this is different. They’ve eliminated direct communication between sections and between branches in a region. So even between managers, etc. there will be no transparency about what’s happening or about to happen. This afternoon many had no idea who their boss is, and assigned projects in progress are suddenly to be abandoned. It’s a complete stripping of power.
I never hear of Rs talking about saving jobs in the post office. Even though USPS gives preferential hiring to veterans, and it’s been a place where vets transitioning from war zone experiences back to civilian life have found jobs that help them (and many other people) get on their feet, including in rural areas.
Quiltingfool
@Roger Moore: My mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her mid-50s. She readily admitted that she liked the manic phase – she thought she accomplished a lot of things, but in reality she didn’t. The depressive part of the disease was so debilitating to her, manic was preferable because she was “doing things.” Her bipolar was so difficult to manage medically, and therapy was not helpful. It is a terrible mental disease that takes its toll on the patient and their family. Some people want to blame Kanye’s wife for not taking charge of her husband, but believe me, there isn’t a lot she can do.
Darkrose
@Aleta: Exactly. Republicans think Kanye will pull Black votes from Biden because Republicans are racist. Even the Black Bernie stans aren’t going to protest vote for Mr. Slavery Was a Choice.
debbie
@gwangung:
At last! A candidate for Susan Sarandon!
J R in WV
@Darkrose:
This! Mr. West is a waste of time and money, I hope no one will be damaged by his futile political stunt other than Mr. Trump, who deserves it so hard.
dr. luba
@geg6: The GOP keep pulling this shit in Michigan. First with Keith Butler, now with John James.
They think black folks are stupid, something they have in common with the Bros.