If you watch cable news, chances are you’ve seen a segment about Americans Elect, a non-profit dedicated to nominating someone (whoever, really) to run for president outside the regular two-party primary system and get them on the ballot across the country for the general election.
Yes, it’s kind of silly on an ideological level (who would preemptively back, say, Ralph Nader OR Steve Forbes?). But one odd nugget out of an Obama campaign briefing with reporters this week is that the president’s re-election team actually sounds concerned about their impact on the race. Or, if not that, then at least mildly annoyed.
“What’s clear is they will be on the ballot in most states,” campaign manager Jim Messina said. “And that’s just something we have to deal with.”
David Axelrod added a jab or two as well, noting that while the whole point of the group is to have members elect its nominee by popular vote, some vaguely defined “council of elders” is authorized to veto the people’s choice to block an unpalatable pick.
“It’s like uber-democracy meets backroom bosses,” Axelrod said. “An amalgam of both.”
It does raise the question, though, of whether Obama should be worried about these guys. And the answer is: probably not.
For starters, an independent presidential candidate isn’t some abstract concept. There’s only a handful of people with the name recognition, personal wealth, or grassroots following to mount a plausible bid at all. Michael Bloomberg is the heavyweight in this category. Others include Donald Trump and Ron Paul on the right and Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich on the left.
As it turns out, Democratic pollster PPP tested many of these matchups in late August in a Romney/Obama fight, including Trump, Paul, Bloomberg, Nader, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and even Sarah Palin. Obama led in almost every scenario — only Bloomberg failed to hurt the Republicans, and even then Romney and Obama tied at 42%. While left-wing challengers seemed to have little effect on Obama’s support, right-wing challengers did major damage to Romney. Trump, even after his presidential trial balloon crashed into a toxic waste site in May, scored 18% of the vote in their survey, versus 30% for Romney, and a crushing 46% for Obama.
The reason PPP gave for their results is that Obama’s core voters aren’t up for grabs. And PPP pollster Tom Jensen says nothing has changed in the underlying numbers driving this trend since then.
“[Obama] has a much more solid base of support than either Romney or Gingrich would have,” Jensen told TPM. “Only about 35% of voters like either of them, but Obama’s absolute worst case scenario would be something like 45% of the vote…if the opposition to him gets split in any meaningful way between two other candidates he gets reelected and probably with a huge number of electoral votes.”
This helps explain why there hasn’t been a serious primary challenge on the Democratic side.
So unless something changes dramatically for Obama’s left flank, it’s all really that simple — Democrats are united behind the president, while Gingrich and Romney each have a major chunk of Republican-leaning voters that would consider a protest vote if one became available.
