hoping the theme of 2024 will be: The Year of the Alternative
“the current level of disaffection appears abnormally high, and it could set the stage for strong performances from third party hopefuls”
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article281992783.html
Americans showing ‘unusually high level’ of dislike toward 2024 candidates, experts say
BY BRENDAN RASCIUS 11/17/2023
When most Americans consider the current list of presidential candidates, they’re not satisfied with their choices. Like a sparingly short restaurant menu, they’re scanning it, flipping it over, searching for fresher, more palatable options. With less than one year until the 2024 election, 52% of voters — including 72% of independents — want new candidates to enter the race, according to a Nov. 15 Quinnipiac University poll, which sampled 1,743 U.S. adults. It’s just the latest in a string of surveys that indicate the majority of Americans are loath to see a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
While some degree of voter dissatisfaction is normal — complaining about presidential candidates is as American as apple pie — the current level of disaffection appears abnormally high, and it could set the stage for strong performances from third party hopefuls, according to experts.
‘UNUSUALLY HIGH LEVEL OF DISSATISFACTION’
“The electorate is showing an unusually high level of dissatisfaction with the major party candidates,” Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told McClatchy News. “They have reservations about both candidates.”
“I do not recall seeing levels of concern like we are seeing today,” Michael Hanmer, a politics professor at the University of Maryland, told McClatchy News. While former President Trump boasts a seemingly unshakable base of support — a majority of Republicans favor him for re-election in multiple polls — large swaths of the population see him as a threat to democracy and unfit to return to the Oval Office, Hanmer said. “Trump is facing 91 felony counts in four different courts,” Alan Lichtman, a history professor at American University, told McClatchy News. “Neither indictments or convictions disqualify candidates for president, but clearly they represent a heavy, unprecedented burden, especially if Trump is convicted in any court and sentenced to prison prior to the general election.”
Biden comes with his own baggage, including a “lack of charismatic appeal, and poor messaging on his accomplishments,” Lichtman said. He is now bleeding support among his own party, including young liberals and minorities who are particularly disenchanted with the president, Burden said, adding “many Democrats also have concerns about Biden’s age.” While it’s not unusual to see an electorate resist presidential candidates, “it is unique to see this level of dissatisfaction within the incumbent president’s party,” Spencer Goidel, a political science professor at Auburn University, told McClatchy News.
One would have to go back three decades in order to see this degree of disenchantment among the president’s party, Goidel, who researches public opinion, said. In the lead-up to the 1992 election, less than half of Republicans, 44%, were pleased with President George H.W. Bush, Goidel said. At the time, Bush was facing an economic downturn and an electorate ready for a break from the status quo after over a decade of GOP leadership. Ross Perot, an independent candidate, ended up eclipsing not only Bush, but his challenger, Bill Clinton, in polls taken several months before the election, Lichtman said. “Did it matter? Well, we saw Perot receive a substantial share of the vote in both of those elections,” Goidel said. Some have argued that Perot, who received 19% of the vote, may have cost Bush the election, though it’s difficult to parse out the numerous factors at play, according to research from the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank.
With similar levels of voter disaffection leading up to the 2024 election, it’s possible that third-party candidates — of whom a handful have stepped forward — will also play an outsize role, Goidel said. Robert Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer, who has polled as high as 20% in three-way match-ups with Biden and Trump, declared his intent to run for the Democratic nomination. So has author Marriane Williamson and Rep. Dean Philips. Activist Cornel West is also running as an independent, and Jill Stein, a physician and activist, is running for the Green Party. Others, including West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, are considering running as centrist candidates, according to Axios.
