Less than a week before The elections Today, third-party presidential candidates still present an unknown factor in key swing states, where dozens of Electoral College votes are on a knife’s edge and gaining 1% can make the difference.
Democrats, traumatized after third-party candidates ate into Hillary Clinton’s vote share in 2016, launched a full-court press early in the election cycle against No Labels and the Green Party’s Jill Stein, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Jr. who ran as a Democrat before becoming independent and then endorsing former President Donald Trump and Cornel West.
The Democratic National Committee put millions of dollars into throwing them out as spoilers at best and deceptive vessels for Republican subterfuge efforts at worst. Outside groups, including centrists and progressives, forged unconventional alliances to clear the way for a head-to-head showdown between Trump and President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris.
The agents who participated in the effort expressed their satisfaction with the effort. No Labels, once a centrist “unity card” floated, eventually folded. He ditched Kennedy and joined Trump, possibly hurting the former president in states where he still polls. And Stein and West are at the bottom of the polls.
But no one is resting on their laurels.
“Democrats don’t take anything for granted. We learned the lessons of 2000 and 2016, when third-party candidates helped wrest the Republican White House, and we won’t allow that to happen again in 2024,” Lis said. Smith, DNC Communications Advisor on Third Parties.
However, “we will not turn our backs, but we are happy that we took the threats of third parties seriously”, he said. “At the beginning of this cycle, people were talking non-stop about No Labels and RFK, Jr. But both of them, because of what the Democrats did, ended up not running or being a complete non-factor in this race.”
Democrats were upset by the results of the 2000 and 2016 elections, in which third-party candidates won enough swing-state votes to deprive candidates of victory. This risk would not go unnoticed this year, they determined.
The DNC created an internal team specifically designed to deliver messages against third-party candidates. Progressive groups like MoveOn and center-left organizations like Third Way came together to clear the way for Biden and, later, Harris to take on Trump one-on-one.
A third-party “unity card” by No Labels was kiboshed after Democrats painted the effort as subversive and lobbied hard against candidates joining the crusade. Digital operations rose to quickly highlight controversial comments by the likes of Kennedy, Stein and West. Millions of dollars were poured into ads for charitable super PACs highlighting the support of Republican operatives. And Democrats filed lawsuits to try to prevent other candidates from gaining a spot on swing state ballots.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks during a rally on October 6, 2024 in Dearborn, Michigan.
Rebecca Cook/Reuters
Democrats now tell ABC News they’re glad their work has made a difference.
Kennedy, partly because of the Democrats’ efforts and partly because of his views on things like vaccines and COVID-19, was seen as more aligned with Trump than with his family’s political legacy. Stein, who voted in six of the seven swing states, saw his support drop to normal levels after fears that frustration with Biden would help him jump. And Democrats no longer see the West as a serious threat.
“There was another point in the race where No Labels, RFK was stronger, I think the threat was a little more existential. I think the threat is still worrisome, but I think the Democrats have worked hard to provide voters with an alternative view of what the third-party candidates are delivering on those candidates. and persuade an alternative perspective on the risk associated with parking the protest vote with those candidates,” said Joel Payne, MoveOn’s chief communications officer.
“Thirds are definitely a factor, but I don’t know if they’re the same factor at this point in the race as, say, six, nine, 12 months ago.”
However, being on the ballot is risky for both parties, and there is little they can do about it.
Stein is on the ballot in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Supreme Court rejected Kennedy’s efforts to remove him from the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin. Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver is also in the majority of the polls.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks in front of former Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, 2024 in New York.
Evan Vucci/AP
Democrats can bash Stein all they want, and Kennedy can shout from the rooftops about his support for Trump, but operatives say they’re almost guaranteed to win some marginal support. In the end, activists said, some voters are unmoved, and in races won or lost on the fringes, even 1% of the vote can make a difference.
“If you’re still a Jill Stein voter, and you think it’s going to affect the outcome that Trump can help, in the end, we’re probably not going to get you anyway. So I think 1% is probably realistic, but if Chase Oliver gets 1%, that’s It’s Trump’s problem,” said Third Way founder Jim Kessler.
Both parties may be of particular concern in Michigan: Biden’s anger over his handling of the war in Gaza could push some members of the state’s large Arab population away from Harris and toward Stein, and with Kennedy still on the ballot, it jeopardizes Trump’s ability to take over. advantage of that dynamic.
A CNN/SSRS poll released Wednesday showed Kennedy with 3 percent of the vote in Michigan and Stein with 2 percent. West also got 1% in the poll, although Oliver didn’t get enough support to register. In Wisconsin, Kennedy and Stein scored 1%, Oliver and West did not register. In Pennsylvania, Stein and Oliver each got 1%.

Presidential candidate Dr. Cornel West addresses the community and congregation at Second Baptist Church in Santa Ana on March 29, 2024.
Leonard Ortiz/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images
“They’re going to get a few percentage points, and that could affect the outcome of a close election that, according to all the polls, it’s very, very likely to be very close,” said Michigan partisan pollster Bernie Porn.
And in an election cycle that has seen a president step down, two assassination attempts, 34 criminal trials and more, any question mark brings another chance of uncertainty.
“You could see somebody playing a spoiler if the race is that close in a lot of these states,” said GOP pollster Robert Blizzard. “I don’t think Trump ever carried more than 50 in Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin, and yet he won those states at least once. And so the third parties, the voters who are worried about Harris and tired of Trump They give them a place to go, but I don’t know what role they will play
However, Democrats have been the party to wring their hands most publicly about the threat posed by Stein and others, because they are not reliving the traumas of the past. And during the domestic stretch, agents who spoke to ABC News provided content that the party did as much as they could.
“What we can do at this point is to make sure that the voters are doing this out of laziness, that they know the consequences of that choice. And at the end of the day, it’s up to the voters,” Kessler said. “I’m happy because the effort is strong.”