Investors Business Daily has a new national poll out that has some interesting findings. In a two way race between Trump and Hillary Clinton, Clinton leads by 5 points, 45-40. What’s interesting is that when Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is added to the mix, Clinton leads by almost the exact same amount, showing that Johnson’s support comes about equally from disaffected members of both parties. What’s truly astounding is that the poll shows Gary Johnson getting an astonishing 11%.
Make no mistake, a Libertarian Party candidate getting 11% of the vote would be an earth shaking political event. Never before has the Libertarian candidate gotten over 1.06% (the all time high water mark, in 1980). If Johnson continues to poll in the double digits, then for the first time the LP candidate will almost certainly share the main debate stage with the Republican and Democrat candidates.
Now, as the polls internals note, most of Johnson’s support at this point comes from the fact that voters of both parties are extremely dissatisfied with their nominees right now. Voters are signaling their support for the idea of Johnson, not so much Johnson himself. And if in fact the media does treat Johnson like a legitimate third party option… I’m not sure that really helps him.
After all, there’s a reason Gary Johnson’s campaign couldn’t really get off the ground when he was a Republican. The bottom line is that Johnson is… boring. And weird. You wouldn’t think it would be possible to be boring and weird at the same time, but Johnson somehow manages it.
Still, he was one heck of an effective governor and if he gets a chance to plead his case, he could well make some serious noise in this race.
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