According to the latest NBC News poll, Hillary Clinton holds a nine-point lead over Donald Trump. Third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, though, are still holding on to a small fraction of voters.
Today on Think, Krys Boyd talked with Emma Roller about why some voters are opting for these candidates. Her opinion piece “Third-Party Voters Know What They Want” appeared recently in The New York Times.
The KERA Interview
Emma Roller on …
http://traffic.libsyn.com/kerathink/KERA_Think_10-11-16_HR_1.mp3
… Clinton and Trump's approval ratings:
“Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are two of the least liked party nominees in recent history. A lot of the third-party voters I talked to acknowledged that they think that Donald Trump is a worse candidate than Hillary Clinton, and would represent more of a threat if he did become president. That said, there is still this very deep ingrained feeling among some voters that they are two sides of the same rotten coin.”
... how third-party voters are affecting political parties:
“I think both parties have some soul searching to do after this election. Maybe the Republican party a bit more, but Hillary Clinton and her campaign, I think they really underestimated the appeal that Bernie Sanders would have in the primary. And that’s apparent by how much she has sort of tacked to the left over the course of the primary, and has amended her positions on college affordability and health care to some extent. So I think there will be a lot of soul searching after this election.”
…. where a successful third party will come from:
“What you’re seeing in this election is almost like two sides of the Grand Canyon. That’s how I picture it, with Republicans on one side and Democrats on the other side, and in the center there’s this huge chasm that cannot be breached. There’s so much polarization in this country. I think in that mushy middle you have a really hard time building a strong coalition out of that right now because politics has become so polarized. So I think if there were to be a successful third party, it would likely come from the outer stretches of things instead of from the mushy middle.”
