Transcript: Swamp Notes — The Three Party Problem

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Swamp Notes: The Three Party Problem’

Marc Filippino
American politics is a duopoly. Since 1853, the White House has either been occupied by a Democrat or a Republican, and that’s it. But even though third-party candidates can’t win the White House, they can certainly make someone else lose it.

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This is Swamp Notes, the weekly podcast from the FT News Briefing where we talk about all the things happening in the 2024 US presidential election. I’m Marc Filippino, and this week we’re asking: Could third-party candidates shake up the presidential race? Here with me to discuss is Alex Rogers. He’s the FT’s US business and politics correspondent. Hey, Alex.

Alex Rogers
Hey, Marc.

Marc Filippino
And we’ve also got Steff Chavez, the FT’s Washington reporter. Hi, Steff.

Steff Chavez
Hi, Marc.

Marc Filippino
So, Steff, we’re gonna start with you. Who are the big third-party candidates running in the race?

Steff Chavez
Well, so we actually have a field of five candidates. It’s Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, of course. And then there are three independent candidates. They are Cornel West, Jill Stein and Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Cornel West, he’s a leftist academic. He’s an activist, also a theologian. And when he announced his candidacy, he said it was, quote, to end the iron grip of the ruling class and ensure a true democracy.

Jill Stein, this is her third presidential campaign. She’s a progressive doctor, and her platform is focussed primarily on addressing climate change, social justice and economic equality.

And then, of course, there’s RFK Jr, who is by far the most prominent of the three and has gotten the most attention and consideration, is probably best known for his anti-vaccine views.

Marc Filippino
Let’s focus on RFK Jr for a little bit because he could play spoiler in this race. Alex, what are the issues that he’s running on?

Alex Rogers
I think people are initially attracted to him because of his last name. He’s the son of Robert F Kennedy and the nephew of John F Kennedy. But then there are a number of other single issues that he taps into. You know, especially after the coronavirus pandemic, after the Covid pandemic, he tapped into the anti-vaccine movement. Kennedy is running against everything big: Big Tech, Big Ag, the corporate media. I was in Nashville last weekend at the Bitcoin conference. He’s a big bitcoin proponent, so he’s even running against . . .

Marc Filippino
Fiat curr, fiat currency. (laughter)

Alex Rogers
Fiat currency. And so he has this odd mix where he’s able to appeal to disaffected voters who are upset with the duopoly system that has reigned over America for so long.

Marc Filippino
It sounds like an anti-establishment candidate, which, Steff, Donald Trump kind of poses himself as. Does it seem like he could pull votes away from Trump or Harris?

Steff Chavez
That’s the big threat that third-party candidates play is that they can siphon people, like off the margins, basically from the main candidates. All of the third-party candidates together are polling at a combined 7.3 per cent, and that’s down pretty substantially from 14 per cent just in the spring.

Jill Stein and Cornel West run on more progressive platforms and were a bit of a threat to the Democrats on the left. RFK was a bit more of a threat on the right. And just, you know, again, people were, like Alex was saying, very upset with the duopoly. And he is a little bit more of a threat to Trump, according to the latest polling. The latest New York Times Siena poll has Harris at 47 per cent and Trump at 48 per cent in a direct head-to-head matchup. When that field is expanded to include the third-party candidates, Harris drops to 44 per cent — so that’s a three-point drop — and Trump falls to 43 per cent, which is a five-point drop. So he loses more in that.

Marc Filippino
Wow. So really could be a difference maker. Has there been any precedent for this in past elections? I could think of one that comes to mind in 2000.

Steff Chavez
(Laughter) Definitely. Yeah. So in 2000, Ralph Nader had a pretty significant third-party run. He only won 2.7 per cent of the vote with the Green party. But in Florida, Nader took 97,488 votes. Gore lost the state by 537 votes.

Marc Filippino
Yeah, and it ended costing al Gore, who was the Democratic candidate, and Bill Clinton’s vice-president, the election. Right?

Steff Chavez
Correct.

Marc Filippino
Alex, you’re a money guy. What is this doing in terms of fundraising for each of the candidates?

Alex Rogers
RFK Jr’s top two donors are Tim Mellon and Nicole Shanahan, his running mate. Shanahan last year divorced from Google co-founder Sergey Brin and has . . . Nicole has given the campaign through a Super PAC about $13mn. Despite all these millions from these two extremely wealthy donors, the Kennedy campaign is in debt. The last report that came out at the end of June showed that it was a couple million, few million dollars in debt. It had only $3mn on hand. Meanwhile, Harris is raising a ton of money. I think she raised $200mn in her first week. Trump is still raking it in as well. From a money standpoint, Kennedy is, like his poll numbers, deteriorating and becoming less and less of a factor.

Marc Filippino
OK so it sounds like RFK Jr is fading a bit. Why is that? Why is it so hard for third-party candidates to gain traction?

Alex Rogers
I think for our readers and listeners in Europe especially, it’s surprising that the US is so dominated by two parties and has been for so long and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. I think that the difference in America versus Europe is that political leaders work from the inside. They understand that the way in which to accrue power is to push your ideas from within the Democratic party or through the Republican party. In part, it’s because of the laws and how much money it takes now to wage a campaign. And if you are further to the left or further to the right, it’s probably more effective to work from the inside than to be a rabble-rouser in the Green party or an independent candidate, even one with a famous last name like Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Marc Filippino
Steff, what do you think? I mean, because I think what Alex is putting down here is that we don’t have a coalition government, which is a lot of what we see in European governments and elsewhere. And I’m curious how much that factors into it and just generally what you think about, you know, third parties and whether or not Americans actually want one.

Steff Chavez
It’s definitely a really good question because only 28 per cent of American adults are satisfied with how democracy is working. Like, these are numbers from 2023, but that’s a drop across both Democrats and Republicans from 2021.

Alex Rogers
What’s interesting, though, is that the polling for our political leaders, though, are higher in America than they are in other countries. And so Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have about a 40 per cent approval rating. I’m pretty sure that Macron would kill to have a 40 per cent approval rating.

So there is something, there is some satisfaction with our political leaders. You know, if you belong to a particular political party, you typically like your leader. And so while the general state of democracy, you know, people may be feeling worse and worse about, I do think it’s interesting that Republicans still like their political leader, Donald Trump, and Democrats still like their leader, now Kamala Harris.

Marc Filippino
So there’s no hope, no hope of a of a third party emerging in America.

Steff Chavez
I’m inclined not to think so, especially because people who do vote for third or say in polls that they intend to vote for a third party or independent candidate kind of tend to come home to one of the major parties. So usually, no matter how they’re polling, election day always looks different. The independent candidates almost always perform worse than they did in the polling because I think, you know, voters kind of get to the ballot box and say, you know, I don’t want to waste my vote and have it not count.

Marc Filippino
Do you think candidates actually feel threatened by these third-party candidates? There was some report that RFK Jr basically approached Donald Trump during the Republican National Convention and said, if you hand me a job, I’ll go away (laughter). And, you know, I’m wondering how much of that is considered when you’re a candidate and how worried you are about the RFK Jr-types or any one of these figures that we’re talking about now.

Steff Chavez
For sure. And like, I mean, the Democrats were worried before Harris entered the picture as a candidate and when it was still Biden and Trump, which is when RFK was really a threat, because, you know, a lot of people really hated this rematch. That seemed like it was, that was going to happen.

Marc Filippino
Nobody was happy with either of the choices.

Steff Chavez
Exactly, double haters. But Biden had, you know, brought a bunch of Kennedys on stage, like over a dozen of them at one event to get their endorsement very publicly, and so that all of them could tell the rest of the party, you know, we denounce RFK Jr. Or like, the Kennedy family doesn’t want this.

Marc Filippino
You like Kennedys? I got a whole bunch of Kennedys.

Steff Chavez
Right, exactly.

Marc Filippino
Yeah.

Alex Rogers
St Patty’s Day.

Steff Chavez
(laughter) So in that moment, you know, I know we’re talking about, like, the previous phase of the election, but they were scared enough that they wanted to make a public showing of, you know, the Kennedys backing the Democratic establishment.

Alex Rogers
When it was a choice between an 81-year-old president, a 78-year-old former president or a vigorous 70-year-old man from a famous Democratic party, it was more of an issue. I mean, Kennedy, you know, when the options were Biden and Trump, was gaining a decent amount of support. Now, when people are deciding between Harris and Trump, we don’t know the answer to that. This election is going to come down to so few votes out of so many. We don’t know the role of third parties in November.

Marc Filippino
All right, guys, on that note, I think we’re going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we’re going to do Exit Poll. This one might be a little spicy (laughter).

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[UNHEDGED PODCAST TRAILER PLAYING]

Marc Filippino
We are back with Exit Poll, where we talk about something that did not happen on the campaign trail and apply rigorous political analysis to it. And I assure you that this one was not on the campaign trail. The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled that chicken wings labelled as boneless can legally have bones. That case was brought by a man who accidentally swallowed a bone from a boneless wing and suffered oesophagus damage, which, wow, I mean, what do we think, guys? Ohio Supreme Court is majority Republican, but this seems like a departure from originalism, right?

Steff Chavez
I mean, this is where I tell you that I have no skin in this game because . . .

Marc Filippino
Oh, nice.

Steff Chavez
I’m a vegetarian.

Marc Filippino
Oh, I thought you were making a chicken pun (laughter).

Steff Chavez
I was trying to. Yes, I was.

Marc Filippino
(Laughter) It’s so much a better when Steff explained the joke (laughter). So you’re a vegetarian?

Steff Chavez
(laughter) I’m vegetarian. So I have no skin in this game.

Alex Rogers
The listeners need to be clear that this is a surprise for us. The guests don’t know the question that you’re about to ask. Oh, I have to think off the top of my head, am I pro mislabelling boneless chicken?

Marc Filippino
Right? I guess the thing is, it doesn’t matter.

Alex Rogers
It does matter.

Marc Filippino
If you were to order boneless wings got bones in it, you’d be upset, right?

Alex Rogers
Yeah. No, I want boneless.

Steff Chavez
No, definitely. It’s the same thing with pitted olives like (ooh), you know . . .

Marc Filippino
See, this is the vegetarian side.

Steff Chavez
It’s the vegetarian side.

Alex Rogers
Right, or seedless watermelon.

Steff Chavez
Right. If I like scoop olives in and they’re supposed to be pitted and the pits are in there, I don’t know, I could end up at the dentist.

Alex Rogers
I . . . if I order boneless chicken, I want boneless chicken.

Marc Filippino
To the Supreme Court of Ohio. I think we all have a bone to pick with you.

Alex Rogers
Oh . . .

Marc Filippino
Oh . . . oh!

Steff Chavez
That’s too much. (Oh) That’s too much (laughter).

Marc Filippino
I want to thank our guest, Alex Rogers. He’s the FT’s US business and politics correspondent. Thanks, Alex.

Alex Rogers
Thank you.

Marc Filippino
And Steff Chavez, she is our Washington reporter and vegetarian. Thanks, Steff.

Steff Chavez
Thanks, Marc.

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Marc Filippino
This is Swamp Notes, the US politics show from the FT News Briefing. If you want to sign up for the Swamp Notes newsletter, we’ve got a link to that in the show notes. Our show is mixed and produced by Ethan Plotkin. It’s also produced by Lauren Fedor and Sonja Hutson. Special thanks to Peter Nicholson and Manuela Saragosa. I’m your host, Marc Filippino. Our executive producer’s Topher Forhecz and Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio. Original music by Hannis Brown. Check back next week for more US political analysis from the Financial Times.