3 Reasons It's a Big Year for Libertarians' 3rd Party Campaign

WASHINGTON, D.C. — There has never been a major party presidential nominee as unpopular as Donald Trump, but Hillary Clinton gives him a run for his money.

Mainstream Republicans who just can’t get with Trump’s overtly racist dog-whistling or his “New York values” are looking for an alternative. Some Sanders supporters who don’t see themselves switching to Hillary are in a similar camp. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg doesn’t seem to be readying himself for a third party run. But you know who is? Gary Johnson.

No, the former New Mexico governor doesn’t have the star power of Bloomberg, but for voters desperate for a candidate they can stomach this year, he might be the answer they were looking for. He formally received the party's nomination last weekend at the party convention. A fiscal conservative, a social liberal, and a former marijuana mogul, Johnson is polling at about 10 percent right now and beginning to get some attention -- especially now that former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld is his running mate.

That’s right: The Libertarian ticket is made up of two moderate Republicans with executive experience, both from blue states. In a parallel universe, that could be a winning Republican ticket. The Republicans have taken a – ahem – different path this year, leaving these candidates to the Libertarians.

While the Libertarians were holding their convention over the weekend, conservative pundit Bill Kristol foreshadowed another third party run.

Trump immediately replied, "If @BillKristol gets an independent candidate I'll put him on my drone kill list. That I promise you!"

Kristol's dark horse hasn't been announced yet.

The Libertarian Party has never gotten more than 1 percent of the vote, including four years ago, with Gary Johnson as its presidential nominee. It can still a bit of a wingnut haven, most recently exemplified by the striptease performance at last weekend’s convention by a man running for party chairman. (He didn’t win, at least.)

But Johnson’s announcement of Weld as his pick for VP made the mainstream establishment take notice: Weld is a serious candidate who was elected to two terms as the GOP governor of a Democratic state – the kind of cross-party pollination and executive experience neither major party candidate can claim this year.

Libertarians don’t like Weld. He’s not really one of their kind, just a Republican looking for a home in a year when the GOP has gone off the rails. Neither Weld nor Johnson clinched the nomination in the first round of voting at the convention. But notwithstanding their limited appeal within the Libertarian Party – which itself has limited appeal with the general electorate – Johnson and Weld are making a bit of a splash nationally.

The candidates represent a mish-mash of the two parties’ more popular stances on the issues – opposition to American interventionism abroad and a total condemnation of Trump’s mass-deportation plans for Mexicans and closed-border proposal for Muslims; support for second amendment rights, legalized pot, free speech, and marriage equality.

"They’re clearly credible candidates," said GOP strategist Charlie Gerow, who co-chaired Carly Fiorina's campaign. "If you cavalierly dismiss them, you do it at your own peril."

To be clear, the Johnson/Weld ticket has about a zero percent chance of winning the election. Gerow doubts they could even win their home states of New Mexico and Massachusetts away from Hillary Clinton. But that’s not necessarily what it takes to make a difference this year. They could shake things up one of three ways:

Spoiling the election for Trump. Lots of mainstream Republicans have gone from #NeverTrump to #YouTwistedMyArm in recent weeks, but Johnson/Weld could look enough like home to enough of these folks to keep them out of Trump’s camp. However, the threat of "spoiling" is often the "death knell for third party candidates," says Gerow, and if Trump starts telling voters that a vote for Johnson is a vote for Clinton, fewer Republicans might vote Libertarian.

Spoiling the election for Clinton. This is a lot less likely, but a recent Morning Consult poll shows 6 percent of registered Republicans and 7 percent of registered Democrats voting for Johnson. Plus, a lot of the independents Bernie Sanders picked up might prefer Johnson to Clinton. A viable Libertarian alternative could also provide a home for the #NeverTrumpers that might otherwise defect to Clintonland.

Showing up at the debates. His poll numbers are already impressive for a third party candidate, but they would need to increase from 10 percent to 15 percent to gain entrance into a presidential debate. His presence there could force Clinton and Trump to defend their many unpopular positions. Still, a third party presence in the televised debates would raise eyebrows and substantially raise the party’s profile in a way that could make the Libertarians more serious contenders in the future. Gerow says qualifying for the debates would be "the clearest definition of their success."

At the very least, they could give a lot of voters a box they can check on their ballots without provoking a first-class identity crisis.

Photos: Gary Johnson, left, via Gary Johnson/flickr and Bill Weld, right, via Wikimedia.