This Hart/McInturff poll conducted for NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, and released on June 24, asked voters “If the choices in your district had the following, would you be more likely to vote for a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent/Third Party Candidate for Congress?”
The results: Republican 31%, Democratic 34%, independent/third party 25%, not sure 10%. Scroll down to question 12 for these results.
The poll also learned that 46% of voters are comfortable with the idea of voting for minor party or independent candidates. Thanks to Firedoglake for the link. Here is Firedoglake’s commentary about the poll, which was conducted June 17-21.
That’s great.
But history shows 75-90% of these voters will change their minds by election day.
(Not to worry though; 75-90% of voters saying today that they’ll vote for the Democrat in Florida’s governor election will change their minds too. It’s not that third parties and independents can’t win, it’s that, if you’re not in first or second already, you (in all probability) can’t win.)
Too bad 90% of these 25% have no spine and don’t vote for 3rd party or independent candidates.
They’re not spineless: betrayal is the only rational response to the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
The answer isn’t to insult the intelligence or fortitude of the voters, but to make it so voting doesn’t work like the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
A small first step toward breaking up the duopoly:pick a small state with initiative and referendum and get a referendum on the ballot to elect one house of the legislature by STV or some other from of PR.
Or maybe just sit back passively and enjoy centralized bipartisan tyranny from DC.
One third party candidate Bill Lussenheide for congress ca-45 seeks to siphon votes from republican Mary Bono mack but will act as a party spoiler and possibly cause a democrat Steve Pougnet..to win the election.