Impact of Amash’s Third-Party Bid in Key Michigan Is Unclear

(Bloomberg) -- If Justin Amash becomes the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate he could play spoiler in his key home state of Michigan, drawing anti-Trump votes away from Joe Biden and ultimately helping President Donald Trump win there again.

A poll conducted in May of 2019, notably when the election was far off and the coronavirus crisis had not happened, indicated that an Amash campaign would hurt Biden more than Trump, halving the former vice president’s lead among likely Michigan voters to 6 points, with independent men in particular swinging away from the Democrat.

Trump won Michigan in 2016 by just over 10,000 votes, the narrowest margin of any state in that election, so some Democrats fear that even a small showing by a third-party candidate could have a decisive effect -- an argument that the president seemed to echo with a sarcastic tweet Wednesday morning.

“I think Amash would make a wonderful candidate,” Trump wrote, adding that he likes him even more than 2016 Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who many Democrats believe siphoned votes from Hillary Clinton.

While third-party candidates have not fared well in modern presidential elections, Michigan has long had an independent streak that boosted those candidates, including George Wallace in 1968, John Anderson in 1980 and Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996.

Ron Fournier, president of the nonpartisan Detroit political consulting firm Truscott Rossman, argued that third-party voters in Michigan are less ideologically driven than frustrated by the political status quo. With Biden representing a return to Obama-era politics, some of those voters may be attracted to a contrarian like Amash, who left the Republican Party in July of 2019 and voted to impeach Trump.

“With that kind of voter, who is independent-minded, really disenchanted with the political class and feels like all of its institutions have let them down -- from unions to business to churches to political parties -- an outsider candidate could get some traction,” he said.

But Richard Czuba of the Lansing-based Glengariff Group, which conducted the earlier poll for the Detroit News, noted that it was taken when an Amash campaign was theoretical, and he wasn’t sure that any third-party candidate would be able to get into the double digits when ballots are actually cast.

Even if Amash does well, Czuba said that high Democratic turnout in the 2018 midterms was a sign that the results in November will hinge more on whose base gets out to vote than winning over swing voters.

“When you look at a state like Michigan, the question becomes: Does Joe Biden even need what might be a Justin Amash voter?” he said. “What we’ve seen over the last three years is that Democratic voters are energized in Michigan in a way we have not seen since 2008.”

Political scientists are divided over the impact of third-party candidates. Although these candidates can get more votes than the margin of victory in a particular state, it’s not always clear how those voters would have divided up if given only two options -- or even if they would have voted at all.

Amash made that argument himself when asked if his campaign would help Trump get re-elected by drawing votes from Biden.

“I think there’s a factual mistake there,” he said in an interview with MSNBC Wednesday. “We don’t know who people will vote for.”

Michigan Republican strategist Greg McNeilly said an Amash campaign has a “complex impact” of both drawing votes away from Biden, but potentially also harming Trump, especially in western Michigan, part of which Amash currently represents in Congress.

“In general, it’s good for the president because it gives people who are opposed to the president more options,” McNeilly said.

He noted that in western Michigan in 2016 there was a substantial number of “undervotes” -- people who cast ballots but did not make a choice in the presidential race -- a sign that they were not pleased with either candidate. He thinks some of those voters might now be leaning toward Trump, but might consider Amash an alternative.

He echoed arguments that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton lost those voters in 2016 because she failed to campaign in the state and did not invest in her operations there -- a mistake that Biden is not likely to make this year.

“The president did not win Michigan, Hillary Clinton lost it,” he said.

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