Things continue to look worse and worse for Joe Biden. With his approval ratings steadily declining and his trailing position behind frontrunner Donald Trump in the polls, many Democrats are fearful of a third-party contender disturbing his re-election campaign.
In fact, things have gotten so bad that during her visit to the White House earlier this month for the Praemium Imperiale Laureate ceremony, Hillary Clinton conveyed her cautionary message to President Joe Biden about this very issue.
She saw her own White House dreams dashed when she lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump – with a number of Clinton’s allies labeling Green Party nominee Jill Stein a spoiler.
Now, it seems that history is set to repeat itself as Biden faces potential spoilers from both his political left and right – with Cornel West, a former supporter of progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, coming after votes from Biden’s left flank and the group No Labels hoping to get a moderate on the general election ballot.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll revealed that in a two-way race, among registered voters, Biden was down by ten points against Trump – 42 percent versus 52 percent respectively.
However, according to NBC’s News national poll, if only two candidates were on the ballot then they would be tied at 46 percent support each but if third-party options are included then Biden loses out to Trump by 36 percent to 39 percent respectively – with libertarian candidate taking 5%, No Labels candidate siphoning away 5% and Green Party candidate getting 4%.
Though Cornel West has denied being poised to become a spoiler in an interview with The Atlantic back in July, he said “most of the people who vote for me wouldn’t have voted for Biden” instead they would have probably stayed home.
This is concerning because an ABC News poll found that 62% Democratic leaning voters wanted somebody other than Biden running while 59% Democratic primary voters wanted someone else challenging him next year; whereas prior to 2020 election only 37% Republican primary voters wanted Trump challenged (59% satisfied).
Currently Marianne Williamson (self-help guru) and Robert F Kennedy Jr., whose prominent vaccine skepticism has made him more popular on political right than mainstream Democrats are running against him in primaries, though polling shows president leading them by 50 and 60 points respectively.
As such Democratic allies are concerned about third-party challenge which could cost them dearly as “every vote counts” – given how tight elections tend be nowadays – source close to White House told NBC news.
