Will 2024 Be Decided By Independent Candidates?

What To Make Of The Apparent Rise In Interest For Running As An Independent

Quite often this election cycle, corporate media has teased its audience with hints and possibilities about this or that politician wading into the 2024 Presidential Election not as a Democrat or as a Republican, but as a third party or independent candidate.

One likely reason for these titillating teasers is the perception among the corporate media that the likely matchup in the general election this November—Democrat Joe Biden vs Republican Donald Trump—is not exactly a popular pairing. This was very much the speculation in October when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., announced that he was going to be an independent candidate for President in 2024.

Then again, there might not be any debates next year. The RNC has vowed that its nominee won’t participate in any debates run by the nonpartisan commission, which could leave the two parties haggling over new rules — including for third-party contenders — if the candidates want to debate at all.

Third-party voting tends to increase when the two major-party candidates are unpopular. In 2016, both Trump and Hillary Clinton had majorities of the electorate viewing them unfavorably, and nearly 6 percent of voters chose a third-party candidate.

That wasn’t the case in 2020, when voters were happier with Trump and Biden, and third-party voting dropped to fewer than 2 percent. But Trump and Biden are now collectively less popular than Trump and Clinton were in 2016, so third-party voting could spike again next year.

Is the independent candidate an emerging aspect of the 2024 election cycle? Will independent candidates form an essential part of the political narratives which will drive this election cycle?

At present, it is too soon to state with certainty what, if any, will be the influence of independent candidates on November’s electoral outcomes. However, we do well to consider the individuals and entities that may be presenting themselves as an alternative to the traditional Democrat/Republican selection that informs much of this country’s politics. Any rise in alternative candidates and alternative political ideologies has the potential to shape the dominant Democrat and Republican narratives, and the greater the rise in those alternative ideologies the greater the impact they will have on the dominant narratives.

At present, the most notable independent/third party candidate in the 2024 Presidential election is

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

, who opted to pursue an independent candidacy last October.

Today, I Declared Myself an Independent Candidate for President

Americans are weary of the culture war, the phony slogans of politicians, and the partisan blame game that has us all at each other’s throats. 

And people suspect that the divisions are deliberately orchestrated, and that getting us to hate each other is part of the scam. 

And they’re fed up with being fooled, and they are ready to take back their power. 

There is no other explanation for the enthusiasm I see every day in the people flocking to our campaign. Sometimes it gives me goosebumps. Their minds may tell them the situation is hopeless, that the elites are too entrenched, that the corruption is too deep. But their hearts say otherwise. I know that because I meet scores of people every day, even those in the hardest circumstances, who haven’t given up on America. 

In large measure, RFK’s decision to campaign as an independent is of the same aspirational stuff as his decision to seek the Democratic nomination back in June of last year. He is rhetorically at least very committed to changing “business as usual” within American politics.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: The Return Of The Kennedy Democrat?

One of Kennedy’s primary objectives as part of his Presidential agenda is to change the status quo on government misinformation and censorship.

Kennedy’s declaration of his independent candidacy was a rejection not merely of the Democratic Party but of the very foundation of the two-party political system that we have in this country.

And finally, we declare independence from the two political parties and the corrupt interests that dominate them, and the entire rigged system of rancor and rage, corruption and lies, that has turned government officials into indentured servants of their corporate bosses. 

The corporate media take on RFK’s candidacy is that it could dilute the vote for Joe Biden.

Kennedy’s greatest opening with Democratic-leaning voters is their lack of enthusiasm for Biden’s reelection campaign. A significant number of Democrats and Biden 2020 voters don’t think the president should be seeking another term and say they are open to supporting other candidates.

In a poll released last week by Republican firm Echelon Insights, Kennedy drew 16 percent of voters who said they voted for Biden in 2020, compared to a slightly smaller number, 10 percent, of Trump voters. Overall, Kennedy was backed by 13 percent of Democrats, 9 percent of Republicans and 23 percent of independents on the ballot test.

At the same time, some pundits see Kennedy as possibly pulling more votes away from Donald Trump by November, and thus splitting an “anti-Biden” vote. That would work to Biden’s favor in the same way H. Ross Perot’s candidacy diluted votes for incumbent President George H. W. Bush in 1992.

So while Democrats may not be enthusiastic about Biden, Kennedy might struggle to pull them away — especially the large numbers of those who say they are worried about Trump returning to the White House. Kennedy’s super PAC has its own polling showing the son of the former senator and attorney general drawing slightly more votes from Trump than Biden, though the differences were well within the margin of error.

Those are the theories, at least. The reality is that Kennedy will at present appear on the ballot of only one state, Utah:

The Utah state elections office has determined that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., submitted a valid petition, so he is on the ballot as an independent presidential candidate in that state.

If Kennedy does not secure an appearance on the ballot of all 50 states, and at a minimum the larger states with a greater number of electoral votes, his influence on the election outcome will quickly become nonexistent. At present, Kennedy is not poised to be a significant factor in the November election.

Another potential independent/third party contender in this election cycle is the group “No Labels”. No Labels is a notionally centrist political group which has for several years been striving to foster bipartisian political consensus within the US Congress.

For the last decade, No Labels has been working to combat the anger and extremism consuming our politics. We have created a growing national movement of commonsense Americans pushing our leaders together to solve our country’s biggest problems. And we created the first-of-its-kind House Problem Solvers Caucus and an allied Senate group that were the force behind historic problem solving achievements like the 2021 Infrastructure Bill.

Ironically, No Labels, after decrying the frequently erroneous political polling which ultimately supports misleading narratives on both sides of the aisle, the group relies on poll data to conclude that there could be broad support for a bipartisan independent Presidential ticket in November.

The Washington establishment is often so certain – and so wrong – about the future. Remember when they told you a Republican “red wave” was coming in the 2022 midterms? Or that Hillary Clinton had a “100% chance of winning the election” in 2016 against Donald Trump?

Keep this in mind next time you hear that an independent ticket could never win the White House in 2024. No Labels has spent more than a year investigating whether it is possible. We:

• Surveyed more than 50,000 people across several different polls. Our most recent poll, conducted by HarrisX in December 2022, included responses from more than 26,000 registered voters, including representative samples in all 50 states. We aren’t aware of any other poll that’s been conducted in the 2024 election cycle with a sample this large or this granular.

• Modeled every state in the country; and

• Gathered some 600,000 signatures on our way to getting nationwide ballot.

Our research reveals a public that is tired, frustrated and pessimistic about the country’s future and their own prospects. They have had it with political leaders who fixate on yesterday’s hatreds and grievances instead of focusing on the future. 

This commonsense majority believes America can do better, and our research reveals they could propel an independent unity ticket to an outright victory in the Electoral College in 2024. This kind of ticket would draw an EQUAL share of support from both major parties, according to our latest polling.

At present, No Labels has not defined a specific Presidential candidate nor organized a Presidential ticket for 2024. However, retiring Senator Joe Manchin (D-WVa), one of the leaders of No Labels’ Senate “problem solver caucus”, has repeatedly flirted with the prospect of leading such a ticket, and recently told Fox News’ Shannon Bream that he would likely make a decision about heading a No Labels ticket after the Super Tuesday primaries in March.

FNC's Shannon Bream asked West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin for an update on whether he considering launching a third-party presidential run under the "No Labels" umbrella.

"I have never been a spoiler nor will I ever be a spoiler on any election. If I'm involved, I'm involved to win," Manchin said today on "FOX News Sunday."

"I think you start looking after Super Tuesday to find out what the lay of the land is going to be. A lot can change in the next two months. And so let's wait and see."

No Labels could be poised to have significant impact in the November election, because as of this writing they are already on the ballot in 13 states.

Joe Cunningham, the National Director of centrist political organization No Labels and a former U.S Congressman, recently announced the movement continues to gain traction as they have now secured a spot on the ballot in 13 states and counting for the 2024 presidential election.

Despite having much less name recognition than RFK, Jr., No Labels is benefiting from ten years of political organizing to master the logistics of gaining access to ballots in all 50 states, a logistical challenge with which Kennedy is apparently still struggling.

A third major political “name” potentially among the independent candidates in 2024 is Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who is contemplating an independent run for President largely in an effort to “stop Trump”.

Cheney continues to flirt with the possibility of her own third-party presidential bid, vowing to do “whatever it takes” to keep Trump from returning to the White House.

“I’m going to do whatever is the most effective thing to ensure that Donald Trump is not elected,” Cheney said to applause on Friday. “I’ll make a decision about what that is in the coming months.”

This is an odd stance for a Republican politician to take, given Donald Trump’s clear dominance among GOP rank and file voters, a dominance that received an unequivocal demonstration in the recent Iowa caucuses.

Trump, who is aiming to be the first former president since Grover Cleveland in the 1890s to return to office after losing re-election to a second consecutive term, appeared Monday night to be headed for a record-breaking showing in the first nominating contest of 2024.

Trump's final margin of victory could eclipse the 13 points that Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas won by in the 1996 Republican caucuses. And a commanding performance, especially if he wins a majority of the vote, would be the strongest sign yet that there is no decisive demand for an alternative as the race shifts to next week’s New Hampshire primary. 

As I observed after the returns from Iowa came in, Trump’s lead is so great that the contest between Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis for second place in Iowa seems quaint, and even irrelevant.

Both DeSantis and Haley leave Iowa with a major problem in their campaigns for the GOP nomination: Donald Trump's commanding lead in the polls is real, and unless either DeSantis or Haley can beat Trump in a pre-Super Tuesday primary, their campaigns are reduced to a meaningless hunt for second place in the nominating contest.

This is the candidacy and the momentum that Liz Cheney seeks to derail with an independent White House bid.

While the most notable persons potentially in the Presidential election outside of the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees are also declaring their independence from the party machinery of both parties, we should not overlook two other “third party” options—the Libertarian Party and the Green Party.

As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty: a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and are not forced to sacrifice their values for the benefit of others.

We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.

Consequently, we defend each person’s right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.

The Green Party of the United States is a grassroots national party. We're the party for "We The People," the health of our planet, and future generations instead of the One Percent. We welcome all those who refuse to accept a choice limited to the Two Parties of War and Wall Street.

While these parties have yet to secure ballot access in all 50 states, the Libertarian Party has secured ballot access in 33 states.

Despite some gains in the 2022 midterms, recent attacks on alternative parties in some states and internal dissension in others put the Libertarian Party at risk of not being able to attain 50-state ballot access for its Presidential candidate for the first time since 2012. Compared to this time four years ago, the LP has two more states that will require significant petition efforts, including daunting requirements in New York, thanks to the high barriers put in place by now-disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo not long before he had to leave office. The states with competing organizations are an additional distraction that was not present in the last presidential election cycle.

For its part, the Green Party has secured ballot access in 19 states.

If Kennedy and Joe Manchin, along with the eventual candidates of the Libertarian and Green Parties, all appear on a large number of state ballots, their supporters could have an outsized influence on the election just by splitting and diluting the votes within rank and file Democrats and Republicans. Name recognition aside, with that large a number of alternatives to the two major political parties, they invariably must peel away voters from one major party candidate or the other; mathematically, there is no other option.

A large number of independent and third party candidates appearing on the 2024 ballot in most or all 50 states would greatly reshape the electoral landscape, in ways that right now cannot be calculated.

Yet one should not conclude that name recognition is enough for an independent candidate to be an influence on the election outcome. Of far greater importance is that candidate’s ability to appear on the ballot in most or all 50 states.

One reality that limits the capacity of independent candidates to alter the electoral landscape is that election ballots are invariably a state matter, and not a federal matter. This was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in their per curiam decision Chiafolo v Washington¹ back in 2020.

The States have devised mechanisms to ensure that the electors they appoint vote for the presidential candidate their citizens have preferred. With two partial exceptions, every State appoints a slate of electors selected by the political party whose candidate has won the State’s popular vote. Most States also compel electors to pledge in advance to support the nominee of that party. This Court upheld such a pledge requirement decades ago, rejecting the argument that the Constitution “demands absolute freedom for the elector to vote his own choice.” Ray v. Blair, 343 U. S. 214, 228 (1952).

Thus it is more accurate to apprehend our quadrennial Presidential election not as a single national election but as 50 state elections all held on the same day.

Justice Kagan's Accidentally Correct Opinion: The States Elect The President

The one point of reasoning on which Thomas and Kagan agree is that Presidential elections are an area of governance in which the States hold sovereignty. More precisely it belongs to the States as organized polities, acting through their respective legislatures. As the Constitution does not claim any regulatory power for the Federal government over the appointment of Electors, the states remain at liberty to choose whether to bind Electors to the outcome of the popular referendum vote in each state.

Thus the Libertarian Party and the Green Party are at present more disposed to influence the outcome of the November election, as they have secured the greatest number of state ballots on which they will appear. No Labels, by comparison, is still at a paltry 13 states, and RFK, Jr., is in just the one state of Utah.

Kennedy, despite having by far the greatest name recognition of any candidate or party outside of the two main parties, is at present situated to have the least influence on the overall election. Kennedy’s potential as a candidate is being directly thwarted by his relative lack of ballot access.

The same would be true for Liz Cheney should she run as an independent. She would have to choose to stand with Joe Manchin, for example, under the No Labels banner in order to have any measure of significant impact on the 2024 election.

Ballot access is no small hurdle for an independent candidate, and is the primary reason there are not more independent candidates.

Ed Rollins, the campaign manager for Ross Perot, who ran for president as an independent in 1992 and as the Reform Party nominee in 1996, said getting on the ballot in every state was the hardest part of Perot's 1992 bid. 

"It's a very difficult process…to be an independent candidate, and qualify for the ballot it takes a real massive grassroots effort," Rollins said. 

Perot spent millions on ballot access, and even though he succeeded in making it onto the ballot in all 50 states, he did not win any of them. 

"It was a massive cost, and anybody today that basically wanted to do that is to have upfront money and be prepared to go forth, challenge the establishment in most places," Rollins said.

Even Donald Trump, who flirted with an independent Presidential run in 2012, ultimately decided to marry his political fortunes to the GOP.

Donald Trump changed his party affiliation from Republican to independent on Thursday "to preserve his right to run [for president] as an independent after the finale of 'The Apprentice' in May," Trump Special Counsel Michael Cohen said Friday.

While the political infrastructure in the United States is often described as a “two party system”, the reality is that there are routinely many more parties appearing on individual state ballots than just Democrats and Republicans. Democrats and Republicans capture by far the overwhelming number of voters in any one state, but there is nothing intrinsic to elections themselves that limit any state’s ballot to two political parties and only two political parties.

Yet ballot access and the logistics involved in securing ballot access in all 50 states are a clear and demonstrable barrier to any other than the two major political parties.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., might be able to make a solid aspirational case for a new Kennedy Presidency. Liz Cheney no doubt fancies herself able to make a political virtue out of the political vice of hatred. Yet without ballot access in a sizable number of states at the very least, neither Kennedy nor Cheney can hope to have much impact on the November election.

It bears emphasizing that ballot access is the beginning of the campaign process for the independent candidate, not the end. Perot appeared on the ballot in all 50 states, yet ultimately did not win any of them.

Can independent candidates transform the 2024 election? It is very much a possibility. Certainly there is a growing interest among politicians on the left and on the right for exploring that possibility. However, unless and until one of these erstwhile independent candidates appears on the ballot in a majority of states at the very least, the transformational potential of any independent candidate will remain strictly theoretical.

Despite the media titillations regarding the possible independent candidacies of Liz Cheney or Joe Manchine, and the declared independent candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a transformational independent Presidential candidate and campaign is just not on the horizon anywhere.

Which is a damn shame. Our politics could use a little shakeup.

1. 591 U.S. ___ (2020), Docket 19-465