Some right-leaning voters who oppose Donald Trump are considering of voting neither for him nor Kamala Harris.
I perceive how they really feel. In 2016, I printed an article urging By no means Trump conservatives to contemplate casting their poll for a third-party candidate. Within the election that 12 months, I did simply that.
I remorse writing that column. I remorse casting that vote.
To folks like me, Trump represented a repudiation of every little thing that Ronald Reagan stood for. However as a conservative and former GOP staffer who had by no means voted for a Democratic presidential candidate, I harbored reservations about Hillary Clinton.
Voting for neither Trump nor Clinton appeared to be a “secure” approach to specific disapproval of each. Most polls on the time confirmed her on observe to win comfortably. It appeared cheap to argue {that a} vital tally for a third-party candidate would possibly test her liberal ambitions. In spite of everything, the variety of votes for impartial candidate Ross Perot in 1992 might have nudged Invoice Clinton to simply accept larger price range cuts than he wished.
However the 2016 election didn’t go in response to expectations. Regardless of dropping the nationwide standard vote, Trump squeaked into workplace by edging out Hillary Clinton in key states the place polls had been approach off the mark.
Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson received 3% of the nationwide vote, a high-water mark for that get together. An exit ballot requested his supporters whom they’d select in a two-person race. Although many mentioned they’d abstain, extra picked Clinton than Trump.
We are going to by no means know whether or not Trump would have misplaced if extra such voters had switched to Clinton. We do know what occurred as a result of he received. He blew up the federal debt. His incompetent dealing with of COVID-19 brought about tens of hundreds of useless deaths. He completed his time period by attempting to overturn an election he misplaced and instigating a violent rebel towards the federal government he had sworn to guard.
Trump turned out to be a disaster for our nation. Hillary Clinton simply was a candidate with whom I disagreed. I want I had voted for her and inspired others to do the identical.
The subsequent president of the USA shall be Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, not anyone else. The election will nearly definitely be shut. We don’t have the posh of voting third get together or writing within the identify of a fantasy candidate. (In most states, these write-ins received’t even depend.)
At the moment, many states are possible to provide a lopsided margin to at least one candidate or the opposite. For instance, California will in all probability go for Harris and West Virginia for Trump. Voters in such states would possibly suppose it’s OK to skip the election or vote for any person who can’t win, considering: “What the heck, it received’t make any distinction within the electoral depend, proper?”
That angle is flawed in two methods.
First, “possible” doesn’t imply “sure.” As we’ve already seen, the polls can err. By no means Trump people don’t wish to get up on the day after the election to seek out that their wasted votes have helped him rating a slender upset of their state.
Second, the favored vote issues. Below any circumstance, Trump will nearly definitely refuse to simply accept defeat. But when he loses massive within the standard vote, in addition to dropping the electoral vote, it is going to be tougher for him to assert that he’s the folks’s selection. The bigger the margin, the weaker his declare.
For us By no means Trumpers, as for everyone else, the 2024 election is a binary selection.
In the event you abstain or vote for any person aside from Kamala Harris, you successfully vote for Trump. Contemplate the results for our nation. Don’t do one thing you’ll remorse.
John J. Pitney Jr. is a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna School. From 1989-91, he was deputy director of analysis on the Republican Nationwide Committee.
