That’s one way to ensure Biden wins Wisconsin. https://t.co/CJykJ9WGyB
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) March 13, 2024
Truly, the NYTimes will swallow any fantasy that fits their fairy-tale priors. Because, seriously? I can believe that some eager reporter asked Rodgers whether he’d agree to run with RatF*cker Jr, but not that Bobby Very Junior would ever risk being on a platform with someone who might challenge his one-armed push-ups credentials. (The other ‘celebrity’ currently at the top of the NYTimes‘ list is Jesse Ventura, in further proof of their Very Serious Journalism.)
Jr has figured out he can’t get on more than a handful of states’ ballot as an independent. This is a part of his play to get the Libertarian nomination. https://t.co/nJ3m7HeglW
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 1, 2024
If you trust Puck‘s Peter Hamby, Kennedy’s pitch to the capital-L Libertarians didn’t go so well — “RFK Shrugged”:
… Sitting in a hotel suite above the convention hall, Kennedy outlined why he would be a good fit for the party, although he seemed at times to be shrugging through his pitch. “My approach on environmental issues for 40 years has been a very free market, libertarian approach,” he told me. “There’s issues that we agree on, there’s some areas of divergence, but generally speaking, I feel like our antiwar position, free speech, free markets, individual freedom, opposition to crony capitalism—those are all issues that we’re really compatible on.”
The problem for Kennedy, I found out, is that libertarians don’t want him to be their nominee. When I arrived at the convention on Saturday, I walked in on a round of speechifying from the other candidates seeking the Libertarian nomination, many of whom have been traveling the country lashing Kennedy as a johnny-come-lately whose political views, heterodox as they are, don’t align with theirs at all…
Kennedy’s pitch to the lunchtime crowd began with a long-winded tribute to “the commons,” the idea that the natural resources of the world belong to everyone—not corporations, not the government. He pivoted to his record as an environmental attorney, suing coal plants for polluting rivers. Kennedy said he believes climate change is man-made, but he would prioritize conservation instead of government action to incentivize the shift to a green economy. Kennedy said that it’s politically toxic to even say the words “climate change.” Government-backed climate efforts, subsidies, tax incentives, carbon capture—they’re all, he said, just a sibling of “corporate crony capitalism.”
“If you want a fistfight, to paralyze the system, talk about climate change,” Kennedy said. There were polite nods all around. The audience, though, seemed skeptical of his presence. Ears perked up when he talked about Silicon Valley companies, their data collection efforts and “control technologies.” It wasn’t until the end of his remarks, however, that Kennedy really grabbed the room. He launched into now-familiar attacks on Anthony Fauci and the various Covid vaccines, which he called “instruments of total control,” a symbiotic “totalitarian” effort by the government and pharmaceutical industries to exert control over the mindless masses. “They have us all trained,” Kennedy said. “We need someone in the White House who understands this. … There are a lot worse things than dying, and one of those is being a slave.” That line sparked loud cheers—and then a standing ovation. Maybe, just maybe, Kennedy would have a shot at the Libertarian nomination after all?
That prospect crashed into reality the following day, when convention organizers ran a presidential straw poll. Out of 95 votes cast, Mapstead won. Rectenwald came in second. Kennedy came in dead last in the straw poll, earning only a single vote.
If that’s an indicator of Kennedy’s chances at the national Libertarian convention over Memorial Day weekend in Washington—where he would have to win over a majority of some 1,100 Mises-quoting delegates—he’s got no shot. “I have been polling the delegates,” Mapstead told me. “There are just so many people that are against him, he has no chance of it happening. It would also just look very bad if he sought the nomination and lost. It’s better if he goes out on his own and gets ballot access.”
Of course, Kennedy was merely testing the waters in Costa Mesa. He isn’t officially seeking the Libertarian nod. But given the resistance to his candidacy from the convention-goers, his path to get on ballots everywhere has essentially reset to where it was before the weekend. Kennedy’s team is confronting a patchwork of ballot-access laws that are different in every state…
TL, DR: The professional Libertarians have no intention of letting RFK Jr hijack *their* grift. They have standards!
Also, there exists in the world an RFK Jr interview apparently designed for oppo use:
I have literally never in my entire life seen a worse answer than this.
Q: So you hung out with this shitty guy?
RFK, JR.: Buddy, I hang out with *every* shitty guy. https://t.co/LnOkTbk50f
— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) March 7, 2024
And his thoughts on Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20 year prison sentence for conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse minors:
"She was always wonderful to me. And, you know, kind." pic.twitter.com/Q1p3ITfmnz
— Lis Smith (@Lis_Smith) March 7, 2024
Kind. Unlike those of us in the social-media peanut gallery…
Montana Quilt Raffle Winners!
Chris T.
Big-L Libertarians don’t believe in “the commons”.
Rusty
That comment on Maxwell being kind, good lord! Sociopaths cultivate their victims, they also cultivate their references. JFK Jr. is too dumb to see he was being played (and that is the most generous interpretation you can take from his interactions with Maxwell and Epstein.)
Manyakitty
@Rusty: based on his other buddies, sounds more like he was playing. That’s a very specific list. 😬
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
Vote Quimby!
eclare
I wonder if his wife, Cheryl Hines, knows about his friendships with Epstein, Weinstein, etc. Melinda Gates left Bill over his friendship with Epstein.
Splitting Image
My only fear about RFK Jr. is that he is so terrible a candidate that he will not pull as many votes away from Trump as a more competent spoiler might.
Not a Jets fan, but I think they stand to be the big winners if Junior picks Rodgers as his running mate. On the other hand, he has plenty of time to find an even stupider running mate.
Jay
@Chris T.:
Yeah, they do, but it’s the twisted version of Adam Smith’s “The Tragedy of the Commons”.
In Adam Smith’s version of “The Commons”, they were communally managed for the benefit of the whole community.
Then stolen by the 1%, driving the communities first into poverty, then into the factories.
In the twisted version of “The Commons” the land was overgrazed, because the Commoners could not manage “The Commons”, ( yeah they could), so the 1% had to seize “The Commons” at gun point, so that herds of Red Deer, flocks of pheasants could be raised for “sporting shoots”, polo ponies could graze and
herdspacks of Corgie’s could be raised.Libertarians very much believe in “The Commons”, just for the 1%.
Baud
@Jay:
You’ve inspired me to name my yacht The Commons.
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
@Splitting Image: still time for him to put Curt Schilling on board
Baud
Via reddit, especially for you, Anne Laurie.
Patricia Kyler
Mentally, Robert Kennedy Jr seems to be not all there. It almost feels slimy to talk about him. Any Democrat who would vote for him had no inkling to vote for President Biden in the first place.
Manyakitty
@Baud: what on earth? It looks like an invitation for tea or something. That sounds bonkers
eclare
@Baud:
WTF?
Jay
@Baud:
Eeeeeeeeewwww.
All out of brain bleach and the store doesn’t open until 7am.
Nukular Biskits
While I definitely don’t agree with them and question their morals, their intellect, their ethics and their judgment, I can understand why some folks would support Donald Trump.
I’ll never understand why anyone would support this fucking clown.
Quinerly
@eclare:
Well, looks like if she didn’t know, she knows now. She seems like a decent, normal chick. I would have thought she would have left him by now.
Manyakitty
@Quinerly: right? Makes me wonder about her, too.
eclare
@Manyakitty:
I know. I liked her so much on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
E.
@Jay: But the enclosure laws did not retain the lands’ status as a commons. They privatized the former commons. I don’t think libertarians want a much of anything to be in common ownership other than the entities that protect private property.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly:
@Manyakitty:
@eclare:
In situations like these my first inclination is, “Birds of a feather…” Sometimes it’s not, but 10 years is long time to delude oneself.
Geminid
Libertarian Presidential vote totals and percentage of all votes:
2012 Johnson 1,275,000 1%
2016 Johnson 4,490,000 3.28%
2020 Jorgenson 1,865,000 1.2%
I think Johnson hurt Clinton in 2016, but this is unprovable. He definitely outperformed his 2012 showing, and this “overvote” exceeded Trump’s margin in Michigan, Wisconsin and even Pennsylvania.
Jo Jorgenson, the Party’s 2020 candidate, was a traditional Libertarian and served as the Party’s VP candidate in 1996. The Libertarian Party has since been taken over by a “Von Mises Caucus” named after an extremely libertarian economist. They have become more Nativist and they’re definitely Isolationist. The Caucus co-sponsored a poorly attended rally against Ukraine aid last year in Washinton, DC. Tulsi Gabbard was one of the speakers.
One big difference in the last three Libertarian presidential campaigns was money. Johnson collected $2.55 million in 2012 and Jorgenson received $3.4 million in 2020, while Johnson hauled in $12.2 million in 2016.
The Libertarian Party is well enough organized to consistently win a ballot line in all or almost all 50 states, and therein lies the value of its nomination.
Princess
I would think it was a mistake to announce not one but two celebrity possible VP candidates but I’m not a very serious vanity presidential aspirant. I don’t know what broke RFKjr’s brain, but it’s broken.
Tony Jay
@Nukular Biskits:
Head injury. Persistent drug use.
Any number of reasons.
trnc
Not sure I’m following. Have you seen something to indicate that a significant number of potential Clinton voters voted for Johnson instead? I would think that most nominally libertarian voters would choose the republican candidate in the general election any given year, and that Johnson’s overperformance in 2016 was due to more of a protest vote against the crazy ass republican on the ballot.
Geminid
@Princess: Well, it got him some publicity and he’s got to keep his name in the news somehow.
RFK Jr. really needs that Libertarian ballot line, it seems to me. Those von Mises people might set up a bidding war between Junior’s backers and Republicans who want to keep the guy off the ballot. That would be a very capitalist thing to do, and if the Von Mises Caucus could take over the party they ought to be able to deliver the nomination.
Aussie Sheila
RFK Jnr. is a genuine nut job, and probably a lot worse once you get into the details. However I am genuinely interested/worried about a NoLabels candidate particularly in so called ‘swing states’. From my perspective, in a FPTP electoral system they pose the greatest threat to the enormous (and understandably) broad ‘coalition’ that winning a Head of State electoral contest in an anti democratic electoral system poses.
The Biden/Harris ticket looks strong to me from here, much stronger than the Clinton/Kaine ticket looked in 2016. Nevertheless the capacity for ‘spoiler’ tickets is endless in FPTP.
It’s going to be a knuckle chewer.
brantl
Rand Fuckdy Fuck Paul? Jumpin’ Jesus! And I would have thought that Jesse Ventura would have had more class than to associate with R Fucking Krazy.
Matt McIrvin
@Nukular Biskits: One of his tactics seems to be to get the votes of people who are so misinformed or uninformed that they’re confusing him with his father, or with his uncle… or with his late cousin–or will simply vote based on his name. There’s a strange Kennedy cult embedded in QAnon, incorporating ideas that various deceased Kennedys are secretly still alive, that helps with this.
In a wider sense, he’s clearly going for the conspiracy-theorist vote, with a campaign that hits the antivax angle hard–something not even Trump is really willing to do, since Trump actually isn’t antivax. That’s one thing that might make him more of a threat to Trump than to Biden, though he’s probably not much of a threat to either.
Geminid
@trnc: It is intuitivly logical to characterize Libertarian voters as very conservative and more likely to be potential votes for Republicans than for Democrats. I think this is generally true, but I also believe that the 3 million extra Libertararian voters in 2016 were a mish-mash ideologically, and were as or more likely to be alienated Sanders voters as reluctant Republicans.
And there are a lot of Independents who don’t much like either party but feel they must vote and vote for the lesser of two evils. What better time to cast a protest vote for Johnson than an election that Clinton had sewn up? She obviously did not, but at the time many people believed Clinton would surely win.
This is when I miss the good old days, when exit polling gave better information. One thing I would like to know is: how many of Johnson’s extra voters in 2016 were men? I bet it was a lot; misogyny is more powerful than a mere ideology like libertarianism.
I suspect patriarchy predated political life itself by many generations. It is very pervasive and powerful, and manifistations we can see like misogyny are just the tip of the iceberg.
columbusqueen
@Tony Jay: Given how screwed up all of RFK’s sons have turned out, his father’s murder seems to be the root cause of his brain rot. But perhaps thinking that is being too charitable in view of how awful Jr. is.
Matt McIrvin
@Aussie Sheila: No Labels made noises about running a centrist third-party candidate in various past cycles and they ultimately didn’t do it. The problem they have is simply that nobody with the name recognition they want wants to do it–not even Joe Manchin. If they run anyone, it’ll probably be some nobody.
Centrist spoilers are the threat you’d expect from political-science theory, but the last time one was arguably a significant wild card was 1980 (John Anderson–and in hindsight, I think Reagan probably would have walloped Carter even without him).
I think the obstacle they have is that the people who might be inclined to vote for them generally are educated enough to understand the spoiler effect, whereas extremists and eccentrics can go for people who either don’t understand, or don’t care, or are actively pro-spoiler-effect.
Ross Perot, for instance, wasn’t really a centrist; he was another kind of eccentric, more like a less malevolent harbinger of Trump with an issue campaign focused on a kind of economic nationalism and deficit worries.
Geminid
@trnc: I remember political scientist Rachel Bitecofer saying the 2016 result was determined by “late-breaking undecideds and 3rd party defectors.” So she may have included data relating to your question in the book she wrote about the 2016 election.
Bitecofer was an obscure assistant professor at the when the book was published in 2017, and her book got little attention outside academic circles and maybe not much there. Now that Bitecofer is better known, maybe the publisher will put out a second edition.
Princess
@trnc: I definitely know Johnson voters who would have voted Clinton but thought she had it in the bag and disliked her enough to send a protest vote. The plural of anecdote is not data but a couple of them were in Michigan. Alas.
Manyakitty
@OzarkHillbilly: right. Even so, yikes.
Eyeroller
I saw a “Kennedy 2024” bumper sticker on a car at my local post office on Monday. It was a relatively new generic midsized SUV type of vehicle and was driven by a gray-haired woman who seemed to be of Asian descent. Besides the name-recognition factor, I wonder how many people only know about RFK Jr’s past environmental activism. That’s how I first heard of him. Interesting that he’s apparently disowned even that now.
Baud
@Eyeroller:
There’s no way to seek the right’s favor without becoming them.
Tony Jay
@columbusqueen:
Far too charitable. Losing a parent that young is horrible, but it’s not a leading cause of wankerism. He got from there to there all on his own.
PST
About 50 years ago, on the first day of my sophomore year of college, my roommates and I got several phone calls in succession from someone doing an apparently skillful Ted Kennedy imitation and asking for Bobby Kennedy. On the third try the caller explained that he was trying to reach his nephew, a freshman, and had been given our phone number by directory assistance. That’s my brush with Camelot!
Baud
I don’t know if this is accurate, but reddit says Pierce Brosnon supports RFK, Jr.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/1bd6ylf/this_guys_recruiting_hollywood_to_steal_biden/
rikyrah
@Patricia Kyler:
TRUTH
Enhanced Voting Techniques
History has shown the Freemarket Solution to pandemics is the majority of the population goes into hiding and it’s the slaves who are forced to stay in the cities and work.
Betty
@Eyeroller: My friend heard RFK, Jr. speak on the environment a number of years ago and was very impressed. She is amazed at what he has become.
Kay
AL nailed it – Kennedy is vain. He gives such wordy answers – on and on and on – and it’s all self aggrandizing bullshit. He loves to hear himself talk. You can tell he feels he’s entitled to be listened to too – it’s a lecture.
OzarkHillbilly
@Matt McIrvin: Don’t forget ’92:
Clinton: 44,909,—
HW Bush: 39,104,—
Perot: 19,742,—
Baud
@Kay:
He’s so vain, I bet he thinks this post is about him. :-)
Kay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Oh, wah wah wah. Were they enslaved by covid restrictions? Really? Big fucking babies. They couldn’t go to restaurants. The humanity.
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t think the care about the restrictions so much as the class of people who supported them (people like us).
Kay
@Baud:
That second photo is perfect, with his mouth open. Of course he came at the question about Maxwell in terms of how she treated HIM – he’s all he sees or thinks about.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: 30 lashes with a wet noodle for you.
Kay
I think they’ll be some number of not very bright middle of the roaders who will vote for Kennedy because of his name, but maybe he’s too lazy to actually get on the ballot. He does very well on the anti vaxx grift – he pays himself handsomely – but I bet he won’t spend a penny of his own money on hiring people who know how to get him on a ballot.
Kay
Not a curious decision at all. They’re openly rooting for him and giving him tens of millions in free media, just as they did in 2016. They’re doing it more now because now they know he’ll cut their personal and corporate taxes and gut any regulations that constrain them or cost them money.
That’s why they want Biden gone. Has jack shit to do with his age. It’s, as always, about the money. Their money, not yours. You won’t have any.
3Sice
The family’s multi-generational struggles with behavioral health issues are well documented.
@Baud:
Where is Ollie Stone in all this? His coked-out and paranoid haiography is cornerstone to the Qanon mythos.
It’s hard to convey to the young just how prevalent the family was in the public sphere up until the elders passed & JFK Jr.’s death.
Anyway, in stupid shit that will piss of Trump, Joe has 800 more delegates.
Sad, low energy.
Baud
@Kay:
Absolutely. It reminds me of 2016 where all the evil forces of the world joined together to take down Hillary.
I’m also seeing a lot of online spamming about the economy. They’re trying to manufacture malaise.
Geminid
@Geminid: Rachel Bitecofer’s book was titled, The Unprecedented 2016 Presidential Election (2017). At the time she wrote it, Bitecofer was an assistant Political Science professor at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. She later struck out on her own and is now a political consultant.
Bitecofer worked on now-Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ 2022 campaign in Arizona, and he spoke highly of her assistance afterwards:
Bitecofer worked with Fontes through the Phoenix consulting firm Matters of State Strategies. She and her son now live in Salem, Oregon.
Kay
@Baud:
It’s interesting to me how they’ve gotten better at hiding the ball. They don’t do the “he’s a socialist!” thing anymore like they (ridiculously) did with Obama. They carefully ignore Biden’s economic policy. I think they realize these policies are popular in a way they didn’t in 2008 to 2016 so they attack Biden on everything BUT liberal economic policy. Republicans and political media no longer run on the economic policies they favor. They just kind of present misleading, cherry picked economic commentary.
It’s clever. We’re going to have to recognize it and come up with a counter.
Baud
@Kay:
They’re always adjusting. They don’t need to be consistent or logical. What they need are people who want to believe them and they have a lot of those.
lowtechcyclist
I won’t speculate about the breakdown of leanings or second choices of Libertarian voters in 2016, but I will point out that Jill Stein, running on the Green Party ticket, won more votes in each of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin than Trump’s margin of victory in those states.
Kay
@Baud:
It’s funny because media and Republicans deliberately exaggerating Biden’s age-related issues has had the opposite effect on me that they intended – I’m pleasantly surprised he’s still so sharp. I hope I’m not alone in that. This embarrassing campaign performance they put on has actually backfired.
Baud
@Kay:
I always knew it was bullshit so I can’t say it had an effect on me. Hard to say how the normies will react. We keep waiting for blow back that never seems to happen, except 2008.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: They lower expectations, even ours, so Biden looks good when he appears. Not that he wouldn’t look good anyway, but you know what I mean.
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That, but also the interview with the GOP operative/DOJ employee. That’s difficult for anyone and Biden was at ease enough to be offering additional information, outside of what was asked, and cracking jokes. He’s just fine.
Denali5
@Kay,
I thought voice issues are a big problem for RFK. His grating voice is very difficult to hear.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
Just have to note that thirty years before then, I was on the faculty at what was then Christopher Newport College. As a non-tenure-track instructor, since at that point I only had my Master’s degree.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Stein probably drained votes from Clinton, although I think there’s a cohort of Green Party voters who are unreachable for Democrats just like there’s a component of Libertarian voters who are never going to vote for either major party.
I think we are stuck with the Libertarian Party for the next decade at least, but the Greens seem to be getting kind of rickety and I won’t be surprised if they fade out. I sure won’t miss them if they do.
Kay
Isn’t that wild? I guess Florida and Arizona are too hot (and getting hotter) and housing is too expensive.
I’m retiring in the frozen north, of course :)
Baud
@Kay:
They’re also going to have different problems with water in the coming years.
BellyCat
@Matt McIrvin: Perot got more traction than people believed he would, because he presented information graphically. People understand graphic comparisons far better than they can (often) incomplete verbal narratives.
Sheldon Whitehouse knows this very well! Democrats would do well to amplify this aspect of his model — and seem to be doing so by Xweeting historical charts about debt, employment, growth, etc. Alas, the people who need to see these graphics most are those watching TV.
lowtechcyclist
@Princess:
With two weeks to go, and after the last debate, it looked like Clinton had it in the bag. 538’s polling average gave her a solid 6-point lead, and we really seemed to be past the last point where anything could change the race.
And then along came Comey.*
Of course, his disclosures were all over the news, but I’m sure a lot of voters didn’t realize the effect it was having on the race. Checking 538’s average every day, I could see Clinton’s margin erode. The morning of the election, 538 gave Trump a 30% chance of winning, which was scary AF, and would have certainly scared me out of any protest vote.
But most people don’t follow things that closely. And so it happened.
*ETA: Not one of The Association’s greatest hits. ;-)
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Bitecofer was not tenure track either. She hit a career crossroads in Spring of 2020 when the Poli Sci department denied her a tenure track position. Bitecofer struck out on her own, which was a big step for a single mom with a special needs child. After working for the Niskanen Center in DC for a while she developed a career as a campaign consultant. That enabled her to move back to Oregon where she grew up. Now Bitecofer’s a big fan of the Oregon Ducks football team.
Geminid
@Kay: Harrisonburg, Virginia is becoming a retirement destination. Fifty years ago, it was a quiet agriculture center with a teacher’s college. Now, James Madison University is a big sports power and the Yankees are invading the Valley again. This time they not burning all the barns and mills, but instead are searching for reasonably priced housing and temperate weather
The Roanoke area also is attracting retirees. If I had to pick a place to retire I might go there. Winston-Salem, North Carolina looks good too.
evodevo
@Denali5: yes…very weird that he hasn’t gotten help for that. Botox injections are now the remedy of choice for that particular laryngeal problem, i.e. spasmodic dysphonia. I’ve known 3 people who had it, and would have jumped on a remedy had one been available at the time.
Old School
@Baud:
All I can find online is that Pierce Brosnan attended a RFK, Jr. fundraiser last September. RFK, Jr. was nutty then, but was still running as a Democrat.
Baud
@Old School:
Thanks for search. That is weak evidence.
Paul in KY
@Chris T.: I thought regular people stopped being referred to as ‘The Commons’ in Regency England…
Paul in KY
@PST: Did he say ‘chow-dah’?
lowtechcyclist
@Paul in KY:
Are you kidding? They’ve got a famous House named after them! ;-)
Paul in KY
@3Sice: One of the bastards is in jail for murdering that Motley girl.
Paul in KY
@Kay: I have heard that Asheville, NC is very nice.
Paul in KY
@lowtechcyclist: Good point :-)
billcinsd
You can’t assign all of a 3rd party voters to any one candidate. The key characteristic of many 3rd Party voters is that they don’t like either major parties candidate. Typically about half claim they would not have voted for a different Presidential candidate. The other half is split fairly evenly between the major candidates. Overall the Johnson 2016 voters claimed in exit polls they would have voted half for no other candidate, of the voting half, 65% said Clinton, 35% Trump. Thus, for every 1000 Johnson votes, Clinton would have “gained” 150-200 votes had Johnson not appeared on the ballot. Stein had about the same voting fractions as Johnson in 2016. The upshot is none of the close states Trump won would have gone to Clinton without 3rd Party voters. Also, there are many smaller right wing parties out there.
Overall, 3rd Parties almost never make much of a difference to the outcome. Heck, even Lincoln in 1860 wins even when you add the 3 major non-Republican parties together. He only loses California and Oregon and those only totaled 7 electoral votes
Juju
@Manyakitty: she married him knowing he’s a whack job. It’s not as if he’s been hiding his crackpot beliefs under a bushel basket.
billcinsd
@lowtechcyclist: This is not very well thought out unless you think most Stein voters would otherwise have voted for Clinton, which seems extraordinarily unlikely. But it is a common way of dumping on a woman you hate
Geminid
@billcinsd: I did not assign all 3rd party voters to one candidate. I spoke of the votes falling to Johnson in excess of his votes in 2012. He won 1.27 million in 2012 and 4.49 million in 2016, a gain of 3.2 million. I think many of those votes might have gone to Clinton, especially if the voters hasd understood that a Clinton win was not a certainty. But as I said, the assertion that the Libertarian voters hurt Clinton is unprovable.
Rachel Bitecofer thought “3rd party defections” were a factor, but I have not read her book on that election to see how she backed that up.
Those exit poll numbers are interesting but I do not think they are as reliable in recent years as they used to be, and I have to wonder how extensive the coverage was; how many precincts, how many states.