this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
166 points (92.8% liked)

politics

19089 readers
3827 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

This works because almost all the US uses first-past-the-post elections for the Presidential general election. So you get outcomes like this:


Scenario 1:

Biden: 10 votes

Trump: 9 votes

Kennedy/Stein/West: 0 votes

Biden wins the state


Scenario 2:

Biden: 9 votes

Trump: 9 votes

Kennedy/Stein/West: 1 vote

Tied vote, decided by game of chance/lawsuit


Scenario 3:

Biden: 8 votes

Trump: 9 votes

Kennedy/Stein/West: 2 votes

Trump wins the state


This is why you see huge financial support from Republican billionaires for third party candidates who have no chance of winning.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 23 points 7 months ago (2 children)

What makes these financers so sure their spoiler candidates will only take votes from Biden?

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Polling. Right now the polls show RFK and West pulling from Biden more than Trump, which is why right wing strategists want to promote those candidates more.

Edit:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4568220-biden-trump-kennedy-polling/amp/

[–] Atyno@dmv.social 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It kinda makes them look even more short sighted tbh. Like yeah, you can look at "there's a few polls where he takes from Biden" and call it a day, but it's kinda missing the fact he's lost a lot of relevance already with no signs of stopping.

It's kind of a catch 22: he's stealing votes from the low-info pool, but at the same time if he's not defined at all he'll make no impact by election day. Elevating him can fix that, but that risks those low info voters realizing what they're getting into and then start biting into Trump's numbers as expected.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

They don't need that. All they need is to take more votes from Biden than they do from Trump. And the the polling makes it very clear that the 3rd party candidates as a group do exactly that. The benefit is something around a 3 percentage point advantage for Trump with the 3rd party candidates on the ballot vs not.

[–] CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yeah idk, I haven't heard any Dems say they're going to break from Biden for someone like RFK, the dude is an anti science nut job and at least my circles see right through it. I have heard trumpists say they'd consider him if trump ended up in jail or whatever though. 🤷

Hopefully this strategy backfires spectacularly.

[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, the bigger issue for dems has always been low enthusiasm leading to a lot of voters just refusing to vote.

[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 1 points 7 months ago

It's almost as if more people need to vote in the primaries

Yeah it's more difficult with an incumbent because the Smarter Than You DNC decides a primary is bad, but if we actually voted in numbers then instead of just allowing the old people who actually vote in primaries to decide who is the one running, we'd actually have a candidate people can be excited for.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 9 points 7 months ago (2 children)

So far the polls don't show that kind of backfire. Would take a bunch more people hearing about why he's actually running to create it.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Republicans have done this for decades to great success. Usually they'll push a wedge-driving issue with online operatives sometimes posing as grandstanding leftists who will vote 3rd party, independent, etc.

It rarely works for Dems, but Libertarians did screw over Trump to some extent last election thanks to Jojo

[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago

"Shit, Rita, that's what we're getting paid to do, not what we're getting paid to say!"