Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg says new survey data shows voters are increasingly receptive to a third-party presidential candidate, who would likely draw more votes from the Republicans than President Barack Obama.
“The third-party candidate, with this data … might take more from the Republicans,” partly because he or she would draw disproportionate support from white voters without a college a degree, said Greenberg, a founder of the Quinlan Rosner polling firm.
His July survey of 1,481 likely voters showed that 58 percent of Republican-leaning voters and 70 percent of independents would consider backing a third-party candidate. The poll showed that 38 percent of Republicans and 25 percent of independents would reject the notion, Greenberg said in Friday briefing to reporters.
There “is clearly a space for such a candidate to come in” the 2012 race, Greenberg asserted. “More voters, particularly blue-collar voters, think a third party is an option.” (RELATED: Nader rules out another run but ‘almost 100 percent’ certain Obama will face primary challenge)
The prospect of a third-party candidate drew immediate interest from Democrats. The polling data suggesting voter receptivity to such a candidacy are “striking numbers,” said Democratic activist Will Marshall.
Greenberg is a Democrat. He worked as pollster for President Bill Clinton, and his wife is Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro. The new study was done under a contract for the Democratic-affiliated Democracy Corps and the Women’s Voices, Women Vote Action Fund groups.
Greenberg has been doing polls for Democracy Corps for a decade and has “released all the data … people are free to judge the credibility,” he told The Daily Caller. The survey is posted at the firm’s website.
The poll’s results “are not very pretty results … the political class as whole gets hit, the Republicans more,” he said.
In numerous recent elections, Democratic activists have backed third-party candidates in the hope of draining votes from insurgent conservatives. For example, a Democrat, Jack Davis, ran as a third-party candidate in the May 24 race for New York’s 26th congressional district. Davis got 9 percent of the vote, helping the Democrat candidate edge the GOP nominee 47 percent to 42 percent.
In the 1992 presidential election, Ross Perot ran as a third-party candidate and won 19 percent of the vote. Pollsters argue over whether he helped Bill Clinton, who won election with 43 percent of the vote, compared to the 37.5 percent won by then-President George H.W. Bush.
Perot’s voters had a history of voting twice as much for Republican candidates, including President Ronald Reagan, rather than for Democratic candidates, Greenberg said.
If Perot’s votes had been divided 2 to 1 between Bush and Clinton, Bush would have won 50.1 percent of the vote, and Clinton would have won 49.3 percent of the vote. However, because swing voters usually break against an incumbent, especially in a tough economy, more of his voters would likely have voted for Clinton and given him the presidency if Perot had withdrawn.
Going into the 2012 election, Obama’s coalition is more solid that the GOP’s, Greenberg said. For example, only 39 percent of Democrats would consider a third-party candidate, he said. But, he continued, Obama “is stuck at 48 percent [approval]… all these numbers are heading towards a close difficult election.”
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