Don’t Worry About Tulsi Gabbard
She’s highly unlikely to go anywhere as a third-party candidate — and she could end up taking votes from Donald Trump.
Spoiler alert.
Photographer: Sean Rayford/Getty
Democrats are worried about Tulsi Gabbard, the House member from Hawaii and presidential candidate. They’re not worried that she’ll win the nomination; she’s in ninth place or so nationally and there’s no plausible path to winning for a candidate who has virtually no support from party actors and very little from voters. No, they’re concerned that she’s going to launch a third-party general-election run for the presidency.
The good news for them? There’s no reason to worry about her.
To begin with, while there have been two very close elections recently, in 2000 and 2016, most elections aren’t that close and the odds are this one won’t be either. Democrats have been hurt by third-party candidacies before, in particular by Ralph Nader’s Green Party run in 2000, in which he appeared to be deliberately trying to hurt Vice President Al Gore’s chances. But Gabbard is no Ralph Nader. Nader was a famous activist for decades before he ran. He was able to generate an unusual amount of attention for a minor candidate, and Democrats worried with good reason that voters might choose him over Gore. In fact, Nader received 2.7% of the general-election vote, more than twice as much as all the other minor party and independent candidates combined.