I find it to be quite the opposite.

Thats not how this works. The one making the claim provides some evidence. The article makes an unsubstantianted claim that the 3rd party voters are all Harris > Trump. I asked for some sort of proof of this. And you have responded by asking me for proof refuting their claim. Burden of proof is not on me. I am just asking you, or anyone else to back up these claims, because the authors did not

Don’t use being on the spectrum as an insult. It is unbecoming.

I don’t think hypothetical means what you think it means. Either that or you are misunderstanding or misrepresenting what the article is arguing.

The article is implies that 3rd party voters are all Harris > Trump voters if it came down to a choice between the two. That is not a hypothetical, that is an unsubstantianted assumption.

No.

Dumbass, huh? I’ll just leave you alone, then.

So this election cycle it’s climate and the Supreme Court for you. That’s great. If you feel Harris will help fix those things then have it. The policies I’m voting for will absolutely help with those issues. Every 4 years there are going to be major major things that folks think their particular guy or gal is going to fix. And then they won’t. And then there’ll be another (or the same) set of things in another four years. I’m gonna go ahead and vote for some real change instead.

I disagree. Third party votes do quite a bit to move political platforms. No one wants to leave 10% of the vote on the table when that’s all it takes to seize victory. So they move their platforms to encompass what the 10% are voting for.

if you actually want to have a say in which of these two wins,

That’s just it. I, and many others do not value having a say in which of these two gets elected as highly as we value promoting 3rd parties, speaking our hearts with our votes, and edging towards a better political situation for the next generation.

But yes, the electoral system is broken. And ending first past the post will be the single biggest savior of US politics.

I mean… thanks for the input, but you’re just one person. I too would choose Harris over Trump if i was forced to choose between the two. But your and my personal choices to not a general consensus make. I wouldn’t argue that the majority of 3rd party voters would do likewise without some proof.

… none of this addresses that third party voters may find it more important to vote against BOTH parties than to vote against their least favorite of the two, either… but i’ve raised that point elsewhere.

A poll in which “First choice is someone other than Trump” beats “Trump” would indicate that “Trump” has less than 50% of the vote. The same can be said of Harris.

A poll in which “Anybody but Trump” beats “Trump” would indicate that third party voters do indeed favor Harris over Trump.

Do we have any polling of the second type? I am not able to find any. This type of polling would be exactly what i’ve been asking for in this thread.

Well, i would agree that “it’s not going to start with a presidential election” so long as you define “start” as “the first election win for a third party candidate.” You shouldn’t vote 3rd party in only national elections and expect to be reeping the benefits of a viable third party presidential candidate any time soon.

But there are other ways to define “start”. There are goals for voting third party other than to see your candidate win. And there are argumeunts to be made that we are way past the starting phase and are now in strong need of drastic course correction, such as cannot be offered by either party.

For one example, third party candidates move policy. If 5% of the electorate are in favor of something that currently only a 3rd party candidate represents you better believe one or the other of the two parties will attempt to incorporate that thing into into their platform to grab those voters. This may not be a “start” toward a viable third party, but it can be a “start” toward better policy, and that’s a win.

At the end of the day though i think there is a strong misconception amongst main party voters that says that 3rd party voters are just offering up limp protest and would be better served by voting against the candidate they hate more. But the truth is different. Neither party serves them better. A 3rd party voter most likely despises both of the two parties and sees the differences between the two as just window dressings on what are two parties both bent on statist, war mongering, imperialistic oppression. Both parties are so very far from what we believe to be possible and right that a distinction between the two parties becomes laughable in comparison to a distinction from the two parties. I am not voting against Trump or Harris when i cast a 3rd party vote. Am voting against BOTH. They are both truly awful and yet i will have to endure one or the other. But at least i did my small part (in elections both big and small) to move things closer to what i belive to be a better situation for future generations.

I do not think this makes it simpler. It just makes the same assumption over again. That assumption being that third party voters are largely anti-Trump (or pro-Harris; take your pick, it doesn’t matter). My question remains. I’ll rephrase it:

Why are we assuming that if all third party voters were to instead vote for one of the two main candidates that Harris would take more of those votes than Trump?

Because that, in essence is what the article assumes.

Well, don’t get me wrong, a WIN for a 3rd party IS the ultimate goal. But change happens slowly in politics and in life. Slow and steady support for a three party system will eventually result in that end. Continued support for a two party system, by contrast, never will. I, myself, will continue to place votes for the better of those two eventualities.

I don’t understand your response. I asked why we are assuming these voters prefer Harris over Trump and you responded by saying that their preference for Harris is irrelevant, because they don’t want Trump.

This doesn’t make any sense.

“don’t want Trump” in this context MUST equate to a preference for Harris over Trump. And my whole question is “why are we assuming these voters hold that preference?”

That would be fine, if that’s what was happening, but it’s not. The commentor that i responded to, as well as the article that we are all responding to, use this “hypothetical” situation where third party voters all prefer Harris over Trump to justify a chastisement of those third party votes. There is no basis for this assumption presented in the article or within the comments in this thread.

E: added the word “be” to the 1st sentence.

Who said that a single win for a third party candidate would be the death knell of the two party system?

My personal goal is to vote for the candidate who best reflects my values. Always. In every election. At every level. If everyone did this tomorrow we’d be in a much better situation. Obviously that is unrealistic. But so is asking those who vote their heart to compromise their values by voting for a different candidate just because they have a chance of winning. The goal here IS slow generation change. By all means given to us.

“for the sake of protest votes” Not everyone sees a vote for a third party as a “protest vote”. Some see it as a real investment now for a better future for the country.

The points you raise do sound troubling, don’t they? But can you remeber an election in the last 25 years where letting the “wrong guy” win wasn’t posed as the single worst thing possible. The things you mention are bad, yes, but they are also no different than the alarmist rallying cries that have been used every 4 years for the last… forever.

And why is everyone assuming that all of the third party voters would be Harris voters if they were forced to choose between the two main candidates? This is where the logic goes south. It assumes that the third party voters are some homogenous bloc of disenfranchised “not Trump” voters.

In this scenario, why are we assuming that the 25% that are voting third party would prefer Harris over Trump?

And a generation from now we will still be in a shitty two party system if everyone keeps voting for “the lesser of two evils.”

E: spelling

This article is the most logically corrupt piece of statist drivel i have read today. “No, no, don’t vote for who you feel best represent your values. Instead, pretend like everyone else who shares those values is going to team up and vote for the same one of the two people they dislike.” Because, in essence, the “logic” used in this article only works if you assume that all of the third party voters are pulling from one candidate.