The latest USA Today / Suffolk University Poll shows Trump winning in 2020:
President Donald Trump, the first modern president to face impeachment during his first term in the White House, now leads his top Democratic rivals in his bid for a second, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds.
The national survey, taken as the House of Representatives planned an impeachment vote and the Senate a trial, showed Trump defeating former Vice President Joe Biden by 3 percentage points, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by 5 points, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren by 8 points.
In hypothetical head-to-head contests, Trump also led South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg by 10 points and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg by 9.
Seems unlikely? Sure is.
An unnamed third-party candidate received between 11% and 15% in the head-to-head contests – a factor that could determine who wins the White House.
“We know third-party candidates have minimal chance to win a presidential election but a high probability to make a difference in a state’s outcome,” said David Paleologos, director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center. “Every ballot has third-party candidates who receive critical votes. When you give voters more than two options for president, you see how it impacts the major two parties.”
How often do we see that sort of support for third party candidates, even in the aggregate?
In 1992, nearly 20% of the vote went to third party candidates, principally corporate magnate H. Ross Perot. It’s conceivable that this helped defeat fellow corporate magnate George H. W. Bush. In 1968, George Wallace polled in excess of 13% of the total turnout. After those two, though, pickings get slim. Those 11-15% that the poll is claiming are looking at third party candidates? Unless a person with some notoriety to their name jumps into the race, I doubt we’re going to see much of in terms of third party support, and I suspect that those who are thinking about it won’t turn to Trump. Unless you’re a cultist or a Republican who’s not paying attention – and there’s plenty of people who have a nominal political loyalty but don’t want to pay attention to actual politics – you’re probably looking at Trump and finding his behavior to be disturbing. I would expect most of these alleged “third party supporters” to break towards the Democrat.
Now, if we were using ranked choice voting (RCV) rather than single choice voting, then I’d expect a relatively big turnout for the third party candidates – and then probably a victory for the Democrat as RCV eliminated the failed third party candidates.
