Could This Be the Start of Something Beautiful for the Libertarian Party?

Over the weekend, CNN and ORC released a poll of North
Carolinians showing the Libertarian candidate for Senate, Sean
Haugh, receiving support from 7 percent of likely voters. He’s one
of several third party candidates receiving
attention this year for their potential to muck up the outcome
of close Senate elections.

Given all that attention, some may be
wondering whether the American people have become so fed up with
the two major parties that they’re finally ready to start throwing
their support behind an alternative. With six in ten disapproving
of congressional Democrats’ job handling and seven in ten
disapproving of congressional Republicans’, could we be looking at
the beginning of a Libertarian Party wave?

The problem is that third party candidates don’t just fail to
win elections—historically, they do even worse at the ballot box
than polling would suggest. In 2012, the Libertarian Party’s
nominee for president, Gary Johnson, received about 1.2 million
votes to capture 1 percent of the electorate. Given that this was
the largest raw number of ballots ever cast for a Libertarian,
readers might be tempted to celebrate. But some pre-election
surveys had Johnson at 5 percent or more. In other words, he
underperformed his polling.

That outcome wasn’t specific to 2012. When Libertarian Robert
Sarvis ran for governor of Virginia last year, there were high
hopes that one in 10 voters might swing his way. The final
RealClearPolitics
polling average before the election put him at 9.6 percent. In
reality, he took about 6.6 percent of the vote—inarguably a
respectable result, but still not as good as surveys
forecasted.

It seems voters find it easier to tell an interviewer they’re
going to punch the box beside the name of a third party candidate
than they do to follow through with that pledge. One theory is that
it feels good to describe yourself as the kind of person who’s
willing to take a principled stand—but in the privacy of the voting
booth, the downsides of “throwing your ballot away” on someone you
know can’t win overpower the upsides of helping a candidate you
like make a strong symbolic showing.

Which isn’t to say that this year’s slate of Libertarian
hopefuls will have no effect on the final results. A third partier
need only take a couple of percentage points to be the difference
in a close election. If a significant number of erstwhile
Republicans choose Haugh over GOP challenger Thom Tillis in North
Carolina, for example, that could be enough to secure the election
for Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan.

It’s also natural to wonder if this might be the election that
breaks the rule. The trend is for third party candidates to
underperform their polling on Election Day, but then, past events
are a good predictor of future events—right up until they cease to
be.