Third Party Threats to Democrats

I have a memory from the year 2000 of Ralph Nader being interviewed on television. Nader was running for President on the Green Party ticket. Asked why he wasn’t supporting Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, Nader said that there was no difference between Gore and George W. Bush, the Republican nominee. There was, in fact, a big difference between the two men. Nader drained enough votes away from Gore in Florida to enable Bush to win the election.

For 2024, it looks like there will be three Ralph Nader equivalents running, all of whom appear likely to drain votes away from Joe Biden, maybe enough to enable the Republican nominee, most likely Trump, to prevail. They are the African American left-wing professor Cornel West, the anti-vaccine fanatic with a big name — Robert Kennedy, Jr. — and whoever is picked to be the No Labels Party candidate.