Analysis | Biden’s bad debate gives third-party candidates hope (2024)

Former president Donald Trump isn’t the only presidential candidate seeking to turn President Biden’s stumbling debate performance last week to his advantage.

Some third-party candidates say they believe Biden’s disastrous debate could help them win over voters who are wary of supporting the president but can’t bring themselves to vote for Trump.

It could take weeks before enough polls conducted since Thursday evening’s debate come out to determine whether Biden’s struggles have helped third-party candidates. But several of them cited anecdotal evidence of new enthusiasm since the debate.

Green Party candidate Jill Stein said that her campaign has seen an uptick in donations and that a virtual event she held on Friday drew the biggest audience she has seen to date.

“There was a huge outpouring of interest in our campaign,” she said. “This is kind of like that now.”

Chase Oliver, the Libertarian Party nominee, said he spoke with two or three dozen voters at the Houston Pride parade on Saturday who were considering breaking with Biden.

And Edwin DeJesus, a spokesman for the independent candidate Cornel West, said the campaign “absolutely [believes] the debate gives Dr. West an opening to exposure for more voters seeking a real alternative to the two-party system.”

Stein, Oliver, West and the independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are wild cards in the presidential race. They have no chance of winning the White House, but they command enough support to change the outcome of the race if it remains exceedingly tight.

Kennedy has the support of 7 percent of registered voters, according to a Washington Post average of national polls conducted last month, although some swing-state polls have found his support in the double-digits. Stein and West each command about 1 percent support, according to the average.

Stein won about 51,000 votes in Michigan when she was the Green Party nominee in 2016 and about 31,000 votes in Wisconsin — surpassing Trump’s margin of victory in each state.

Democrats have responded by organizing an unprecedented effort to convince voters to resist the temptation to support third-party candidates. The Democratic National Committee debuted a TV ad on Monday warning that “a vote for Stein, West or RFK Jr. is a vote for Trump.” The DNC created a dedicated team months ago to fight the third-party threat, and it’s staffed by more than a dozen people, including lawyers and consultants who also work on other efforts.

Democrats have challenged Stein, West and Kennedy’s efforts to get on the ballot in some states, including a lawsuit that Clear Choice Action, a Democratic super PAC focused on third-party candidates, filed against Kennedy’s campaign on Monday in Illinois. Another outside group, Third Way, has helped coordinate efforts to convince voters that “Jill Stein is a Russian asset and that RFK is a right-wing loon,” as Matt Bennett, Third Way’s executive vice president, put it.

Bennett said he was “very worried” that Biden’s debate performance would lead some voters to consider backing third-party candidates.

“It is our job over the next four months to convince them not to do that,” Bennett said.

Kennedy is polling much stronger than other third-party candidates — but some Democrats say Stein and West, who are running to Biden’s left, are at least as much of a danger.

Trump seemed to agree, praising Stein and West at a rally last month in Philadelphia.

“I like her very much,” Trump said, referring to Stein. “You know why? She takes 100 percent from them. [West] takes 100 percent. Kennedy’s probably 50-50, but he’s a fake.”

Getting on the ballot is time-consuming and expensive in some states, and it won’t be clear which candidates will be on which ballots until late August or early September, Kavanaugh said.

But he’s skeptical the debate will help third-party candidates. “I don’t think it changes anything with the third-party dynamic,” Kavanaugh said. “They were a factor before, and they still are.”

Trump’s campaign also disputed that Biden’s debate performance would help his third-party rivals.

“The only candidate who is surging because of his dominant debate performance is President Donald J. Trump,” Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, told us.

The Biden campaign’s joint fundraising operation raised $127 million in June, the campaign announced this morning, marking its best fundraising month of the cycle.

The operation had $240 million on hand on June 30, up from $212 million at the end of May.

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, called the total “a testament to the committed and growing base of supporters standing firmly behind” Biden in a statement — a seeming acknowledgment of the anxiety created by Biden’s debate showing.

We’re watching when Trump’s joint fundraising operation reveals how much money it raised. Trump’s team outraised Biden in April and May, and if Trump brought in more money than Biden for a third month in a row, it will do nothing to soothe Democratic nerves.

Senior advisers to Biden have increased efforts to alleviate the concerns of Democratic lawmakers and donors alarmed by the president’s debate performance.

Democratic Party leaders plan to nominate Biden in a virtual roll call Aug. 5 ahead of the in-person convention, which starts Aug. 19. Such a move would make it impossible to challenge Biden in an open nominating convention and would, Democratic leaders hope, shut down talk of replacing Biden as the candidate.

Biden made another public appearance a few nights after the debate, taking the time to speak out Monday against the Supreme Court’s decision that Trump is immune from prosecution for official acts.

First in the Early: Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), a member of the progressive “Squad” who’s facing a well-funded primary challenger, is out with an ad highlighting her support for abortion rights in a state with one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.

Bush has been an outspoken advocate for abortion rights. She went public in a congressional hearing after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade about her own abortion at 17 after being sexually assaulted.

“At 17, I was assaulted and had an abortion,” Bush says in the ad out today. “It was devastating. I was devastated again 30 years later when Republican extremists overturned Roe. I’ve turned my hurt into action: defending access to abortion care, organizing to expand the court and working with President Biden to protect abortion rights.”

Missouri prohibits abortion except in cases of a medical emergency.

The six-digit ad buy will air on cable, broadcast, streaming, radio and digital platforms ahead of the Aug. 6 primary.

The ad also accuses Bush’s primary opponent, prosecutor Wesley Bell, of being “funded by antiabortion Republicans.” The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has endorsed Bell, and its super PAC, whose donors include Republicans, has spent more than $2.9 million supporting Bell and opposing Bush, according to campaign finance filings.

Bush has been critical of Israel and called the war in Gaza a genocide.

While the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court made headlines for several major conservative and pro-Trump decisions this term, the court’s decisions frequently defied ideological lines.

Nine of the 62 cases heard this term came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, an appeals court with a large proportion of its judges appointed by Trump. The Supreme Court overturned or remanded seven of those cases.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett was particularly notable for breaking from her fellow conservative justices, Justin and Ann report:

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