Why Michigan's Muslim Voters Could Make Jill Stein the 2024 Ralph Nader – Reckon

As Jill Stein's Green Party campaign gains momentum in key swing states, the shadows of previous third-party elections loom over the 2024 presidential race. But that shadow plays out differently across three generations of American voters, each shaped by their own experience of elections in which a few thousand votes — and third-party candidates — made all the difference.

For those who lived through the 2000 election, the calculation will long be remembered: George W. Bush secured victory in Florida and ultimately the presidency by just 537 votes. Ralph Nader, running for the Green Party, received 97,488 votes in the state. In New Hampshire, where Al Gore trailed by about 7,000 votes, Nader received more than 22,000 votes.

A new generation faced similar math in 2016. In Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, third-party voters could have plausibly influenced the outcome. Hillary Clinton lost Michigan by less than one percentage point, a deficit she could have made up with half of Stein's votes. The story was similar in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Clinton lost by one point and Stein's votes would have covered her loss.

“Democrats take nothing for granted. “We learned the lessons of 2000 and 2016, when third-party candidates helped hand the White House to Republicans, and we will not allow that to happen again in 2024,” said Lis Smith, Democratic communications adviser, to ABC this week.

Now, in 2024, with Kamala Harris and Trump in what pollsters call a “transition,” the latest numbers suggest history could be rhyming again. Recent Times/Siena polls show Stein claiming 2% support in Michigan, while Harris and Trump are stuck at 45% each. In Wisconsin, where Stein is at 1%, Harris has a narrow three-point lead. In Pennsylvania, Stein is at 1%, while Harris and Trump are at 47%.

In the tense final days before the election, social media has become a battleground for third-party voting. “An imaginary war with non-voters or people who vote for third parties is not productive and everyone does the same nonsense every four years,” wrote Instagram user @lilnativeboy, reflecting growing tensions between those who view strategic voting as civic responsibility, and others who question the two-party system itself. “Once again, people are blaming individuals who don’t vote, or voting for third parties, rather than the system itself, as if it were equally designed and accessible to all.”

But the reality of third-party voting is more complex than social media debates suggest. “Often these are people who wouldn’t vote if there wasn’t a third-party candidate. And even though they tend to be Democrats, they are wrong. Often they were people who could have chosen Donald Trump as their second choice,” Bernard Tamas, a political science professor at Valdosta State University, told US News.

Although third parties are largely unsuccessful in U.S. elections, voting for an unlikely candidate is often done as a statement or in contradiction to two-party options, but experts say these small vote numbers could have big consequences in 2024.

“The vote is so close right now that a little tip one way or the other could sway it,” said Tamas, who is also the author of “The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties: Poised for Political Revival?” said The Guardian this week.

2024 brings new dynamics, particularly in Michigan's crucial swing state landscape. The Council on American-Islamic Relations reports that 40% of Muslim voters in Michigan support Stein, compared to just 18% for Trump and 12% for Harris. This shift among Muslim and Arab American voters, traditionally Democratic constituencies, adds another layer of complexity to the spoiler calculus.

The Uncommitted Movement, which fully voted for a presidential candidate in the primaries in protest of then-Democratic candidate President Biden's stance on Gaza, faces a constant dilemma in this election. Although the movement itself has decided not to support either candidate, it has publicly spoken out against a Trump presidency and urged voters not to cast third-party votes. Co-founder Abbas Alawieh said last week that he would vote for Harris, while co-founder Layla Elabed told NBC in October that she would not vote for the president.

According to a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) poll in late August, 40% of Muslim voters in Michigan supported Stein. Their latest poll, released Nov. 1, shows Stein leading Muslim voters nationally at 42%, followed by Harris at 41% — considered a statistical tie.

“The significant decline in support for major presidential candidates compared to 2020 and 2016 is almost certainly a result of community concern over the genocide in Gaza. “We encourage all presidential candidates to address the concerns of Muslim voters in these final days of the campaign, and we encourage all American Muslim voters to get involved in the election, regardless of whom they support,” said Robert S. McCaw, director of government affairs at CAIR, in a statement in November. 1 statement.

The stakes of Stein's campaign have also attracted international attention. In an unprecedented move, green parties from 11 European countries, including Germany, France and Ukraine, released a joint statement calling on Stein to withdraw and support Harris.

“The race for the White House is too close for comfort,” the European Greens warned in a statement to POLITICO, but Stein’s campaign vigorously rejected the request. “Grassroots democracy is a central tenet of the Green movement worldwide, and for one group of Greens to tell another group to stop participating in democracy is disappointing and unprincipled,” her team responded in a statement, pointing to growing divisions within the global Green movement.

The Green Party's votes could decide a race that is still too close to be decided

History suggests that poll numbers are likely to change before Election Day. For third-party candidates, support typically declines as the vote approaches — a pattern that was evident in 2016, when support for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson steadily declined in recent months — from 9.2% in early September to 8.4 % in mid-September and then to 7%. until the debate and ultimately fell to 3-5% in the final poll. Recent polls show that nationwide about 3-4% of voters say they will vote for candidates who are not Trump or Harris. In Michigan in particular, that number is even higher – about 6% of voters there say they plan to vote for other candidates, according to a CNN/SSRS poll.

This pattern of declining third-party support is not universal. In 1992, independent candidate Ross Perot received 18.6% of the vote – the strongest showing by a third-party candidate in modern American history. Its success shows that, under certain conditions, alternatives to the two major parties can find significant support among dissatisfied voters.

The stakes of these percentage points are magnified by the razor-thin margins that separate the main candidates. Recent national polls show Harris and Trump often within a percentage point of each other. Bruce Schulman, a historian at Boston University, told Forbes: “Third parties appear to have very little traction this year and are likely to play a very limited role, but in an extremely close election where a few thousand votes in three or four states could tip the scales. The result could be that a third party pulling even a tenth of 1% could make a difference.”

The parallels to previous elections have not gone unnoticed by party strategists. Recent polls from The Times/Siena illustrate the potential impact: When third-party candidates are included, Trump is at 47% nationally, ahead of Harris at 46%. However, if voters are forced to choose between just the two main candidates, the race stalls at 48% each.

“The reality is they are very strategic voters: 'I want something.' Will you give it to me? No, okay, then I'll move my vote somewhere else.' It's a rational decision they make. And so I think my only concern is the idea that it's irrational. It’s very rational,” Nura Sediqe, assistant professor of American politics at Michigan State University, told The Guardian.