President Joe Biden and many key Democratic leaders are concerned about the impact a third-party candidate could have on the 2024 election.
Political pundits do not expect a third-party candidate to win the presidency in 2024, but many have noted that a third-party candidate will negatively impact the DNC and benefit the GOP.
Last month, former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke with President Biden in a private meeting about the upcoming election.
The Washington Examiner reported that a source close to the matter shared that during the meeting, Clinton warned Biden about the probability that Cornel West would run as a third-party candidate and that he needed to “take the third-party threat seriously and come up with a way to compensate for it.”
Clinton knows firsthand how a third-party candidate can impact a political race. In 2016 Jill Stein, a Green Party nominee, reportedly siphoned off votes in several key swing states, helping Donald Trump secure a surprise victory.
Last June State Rep. Keith Ammon (R-NH) warned that many voters are looking for a strong third-party candidate. Ammon also noted that a third-party candidate would primarily negatively impact the Democratic Party
Validating Clinton’s concerns is a recent national NBC News poll released on Sunday, showing that Biden and Trump are in a virtual tie in a head-to-head match up. However, the poll projected that Biden would lose by three points if a third-party candidate is introduced into the race.
West is an indirect but serious challenge to Biden’s political future. West has launched a bid on the Green Party ticket, but it is unclear what he is hoping to achieve by running a race he cannot win. Evidently West wants to stop Trump from winning in 2024, but at this point, his participation in the race appears to help more than hurt Biden’s greatest political foe.
Co-chair Ben Chavis of No Labels, a centrist political organization that is considering promoting a candidate, noted they would pull out of the race if polls showed Biden with a significant lead over Trump or if Trump is not selected as the GOP presidential nominee in 2024.
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