Hi, Trey. This is Michelle from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. I'm curious to get your thoughts on what you think the impact is going to be on a third-party candidate entering the race for the 2024 election.

Great question, Michelle. I'm not sure a third-party candidate can win, but a third-party candidate surely can impact who does win. Recent national poll sent shockwaves to the two major political parties. Robert Kennedy seems to have more support than either Trump or Biden among some voting groups. And is our conventional thinking correct? Does a third party hurt Biden or Trump? Or does it depend? A third party could play the role of a spolar in 2024. But beyond 2024, is America really ready for another and different political party? Joining us now to discuss is Associate Research Scholar of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, Dr. Lauren Wright. Welcome, Dr. Wright. Do you think a third party could actually win, or maybe more likely, force the election to the House? Okay, let me withdraw the first question. Do you think they could force it to the House floor? Because that scares me even more, honestly.

No, I don't think that's likely either, Trey, but you're exactly right. Just because a third party candidate really can't win in the election system that we have doesn't mean they can't spoil an election, doesn't mean they can't affect the outcome doesn't mean they can't change the debates. And so we have this thing in political science called Duverges' Law. It's essentially this idea that in a plurality system with a single winner like we have, third-party candidates don't win. They don't get enough support. That's why they don't form. Voters don't want to waste their votes. But it also holds that those minority votes tend to split toward the closer majority party. And so this year, candidates like RFK, who was at least at one point, a registered Democrat, someone like Joe Manchin, those would really be votes that we would think would hurt Biden. That's why Democrats are really worried about this.

I just scared myself. I was thinking about a presidential election on the floor of the House. They can't even decide whether to adjourn or not. Can you imagine the election of the president? But I'm going to move on. You have a PhD. I have more like a GED when it comes to politics. Third-party candidates to me usually hurt the party or the candidate they're actually most closely aligned with. Ross Perot to me hurt George Bush, not Bill Clinton. People who are actually going to vote for a third-party candidate, do they realize? Do they care? That it's really like a half a vote for the party they especially don't like.

These are all good points, and Trey, you know an awful lot about.

Politics, so I wouldn't sell.

Yourself short there. But in the case of the '92 election, those votes actually took away from both candidates. And so surveys after the election showed that it was almost a 50-50 split when they asked voters who their second choice would have been between the Republican and the Democrat. And so it's a really good point that this could absolutely hurt both parties. Your point about the dysfunction, I completely agree with. I don't think we're going to get there. But the dynamics of the national races right now could also affect those down ballot House and Senate races in 2024. We don't really know what we're looking at yet as far as the landscape.

All right, since I have you, I have to ask you this. I've asked some third-party proponents if it's an issue-based trend or a personality-based trend? Because I'm trying to think of issues where neither major political party seems to capture where the most Americans are. I guess maybe abortion and immigration would be two issues that maybe would be right for a third way?

Well, it's a personality-based trend because there's a lot of Republicans that don't like Donald Trump and don't want to hold their nose and vote for him like they did in 2016, for instance. But it's an issues-based problem because Republican primary voters right now are really far away from the moderate voters who decide national elections, maybe even farther away than Democratic primary voters are from those moderates. And it's really because of these two issues, pro-Donald Trump, most primary voters, as the polls show, are and anti-abortion. And so it's really quite striking that Democrats are really weak on a lot of the issues that matter to voters, the economy, crime, immigration, on all of these issues, voters have consistently said Republicans are more competent and credible, but because Republicans have these two issues that produce more extreme candidates in the primaries, they put themselves at odds with the median voter, and that's really the risk that they have.

Yeah. You would think maybe in a couple hundred years, they'll figure that out. But so far, many of them have not. Dr. Lauren Wright, thank you for joining us on the Sunday night and hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

You too. Thanks, Trey.

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