Tight presidential race in Michigan has potential to be swayed by 3rd-party votes

Unless the polls are catastrophically off, either Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris or GOP former President Donald Trump will occupy the White House next year. But, in Michigan, votes for the other candidates on the ballot could impact the outcome in a tight race between the two in the critical battleground state.

With six third-party candidates on the ballot for president, Michigan is matched only by Wisconsin for having the most options among swing states for protest voters unhappy with the choices the two major parties have given them. Is it possible any of these third-party candidates will be spoilers that affect the race in Michigan, helping Harris or Trump win?

"A lot of the threats for spoiler effects are overblown," said Valdosta State University political science professor Bernard Tamas. But this year, he said he sees potential for Michigan's election to see third-party votes to have an impact. "If there is a state where the spoiler effect will happen, it's most likely in Michigan. I think it's actually probably pretty low in most states unless the votes are extremely close. But Michigan is a little bit of an outlier."

In addition to Harris and Trump, Michigan's ballot for the presidential race includes Natural Law candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., independent candidate Joseph Kishore, Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, U.S. Taxpayers candidate Randall Terry and independent candidate Cornel West. By comparison, there were four third-party candidates in Michigan on both the 2016 and 2020 general election ballots.

This year, the hundreds of thousands of Arab American and Muslim voters could provide enough support to Stein, for example, to make a difference, Tamas said. Arab American and Muslim voters in Michigan, appalled by Israel's military assaults in Gaza and elsewhere, have tried to use the ballot box to push for a shift in U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East. A national Arab American conference in Dearborn earlier this year featured Stein and West.

The Uncommitted National Movement that called on Democrats to vote "uncommitted" in the presidential primary to protest President Joe Biden's Gaza policies has declined to endorse Harris. But leaders of the group said they oppose Trump and see third-party votes as potentially helping the GOP nominee win.

Democrats are worried about votes for third-party candidates. The Democratic National Committee announced a new advertisement campaign in Michigan and other swing states Tuesday saying a vote for Stein or West amounts to a vote for Trump. New digital ads feature Trump's comment from a Philadelphia rally in June in which he praised Stein and West. "He's one of my favorite candidates, Cornel West," Trump said. "I like her also, Jill Stein. I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100% from them. He takes 100%," Trump said. In that same speech, Trump said Kennedy's impact is "probably 50-50," suggesting that the independent candidate takes the same number of votes away from both the Democratic and GOP presidential nominees.

The Harris campaign declined to comment and referred the Free Press to the DNC. "A vote for Stein or West is a vote for Trump. The only way to avoid a repeat of 2016 is to cast your vote for Vice President Harris," DNC senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement Tuesday.

Stein pushed back against the attacks. "In a democracy, no one owns your vote, candidates need to earn your vote and the only 'spoilers' are the political elites who work overtime to deny a meaningful democratic choice to voters who are hungry for a real choice," she said in a statement emailed by her campaign Wednesday. West's campaign did not respond to an email from the Free Press seeking comment.

On the Republican side, Kennedy said he specifically ended his presidential campaign because he didn't want to take votes away from Trump. He launched a legal bid to have his name removed from the Michigan ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his request Tuesday.

Asked whether the Trump campaign fears votes for a third-party candidate will hurt Trump in Michigan, the campaign's National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an emailed statement last Wednesday: "President Trump is building the largest, most diverse political movement in history with support from conservatives, independents, and even Democrats like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard."

In Michigan's last two presidential elections, the Libertarian candidate received the most votes of any other third-party candidate. In fact, in 2020 and 2016, the Libertarian candidate amassed 2.5 times the number of votes for all other third-party candidates combined. Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen won 60,381 votes in 2020 while Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson won 172,136 votes in 2016.

But for votes for third-party candidates to make a difference, the election has to take a certain shape: close, according to political scientists. And a large number of third-party votes don't necessarily mean they have an impact on the final outcome, because it's not clear whether those third-party voters would have ever voted for a major party candidate in that race or even showed up to vote at all.

A close election could see third-party votes have an impact

The U.S. has "the least successful third parties in the rich world," said Michigan State University political science professor Matt Grossmann. "A lot of people who would be third-party voters elsewhere are not here," he said. Still, in a tight race, a small number of votes could make a difference, according to Grossmann.

Since 1980, votes for third-party and write-in candidates in Michigan have exceeded the margin of victory for the winning presidential candidate three times: in 1980, 1992 and 2016.

In 1980, then-Republican U.S. Rep. John B. Anderson of Illinois ran as an independent and won over 275,000 votes in Michigan, where former California Gov. Ronald Reagan beat then-President Jimmy Carter by over 253,000 votes in the state. In 1992, independent candidate Ross Perot spent millions to self-fund his presidential bid and received more than 824,000 votes in Michigan. Democrat Bill Clinton defeated GOP incumbent President George H.W. Bush in Michigan that year by a more than 316,000 votes. In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton by a little more than 10,000 votes — or 0.23 percentage points. It was the closest margin of victory in any state that year. Johnson received more than 172,000 votes and Stein more than 51,000 votes in 2016.

But just because the third-party vote exceeded the margin of victory, does not mean third-party candidates were spoilers.

Democrats continue to blame Clinton's loss in Michigan and other key battlegrounds on votes for third-party candidates. But the argument that third-party votes cost Clinton the state assumes those voters would have still showed up to vote, and that they would have backed Clinton. One in-depth review of the 2016 election by political scientists pours cold water on the theory that third-party candidates enabled Trump's Electoral College victory.

For a third-party candidate to be a spoiler, it takes a situation like the incredibly close 2000 presidential election in Florida, said Tamas. There, George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes — a 0.009 percentage point margin — and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader won 97,488 votes — 1.6% of the votes cast.

How do third-party candidates in Michigan poll?

An October poll commissioned by the Free Press conducted by Lansing-based EPIC-MRA shows 3% of voters support Stein and Kennedy, respectively, and 1% back West. The poll surveyed 600 likely Michigan voters. It was conducted Oct. 24-28 and has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. Kennedy was polling higher in the summer. When Biden was still in the race, a June survey showed 10% support for Kennedy and 2% support for Stein and West, respectively.

Contact Clara Hendrickson: [email protected] or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, previously called Twitter, @clarajanehen.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: In Michigan, third-party presidential candidate votes could play role