Does a 3rd party help or hurt us down ticket?
I am having to repost because last time people seemed to not read the post as it had nothing to do with DEMOCRATS voting for a third party...but instead us as Dems sniping votes from 3rd party people for our down ticket races. I am merely wondering if we face a liberal third party this election and Trump does not face one will it hurt or help us. I am wondering if a party like the green party helps us down ticket as it gets out people our party does not. I remember with Gore I had several hardcore environmental friends that did not vote for him because of a vote he did on a dam...but they still voted in the election (I think if Gore was not good enough to pull people from Nader no other democrat would have been good enough either, so it was not that some of these ever would have voted for the Dem ticket). My question is do these third parties help us in the House and Senate? Or do they not vote down ticket since they are not Democrats. I looked for statistics on if Perot or Nader hit down tickets..and in Florida Democrats did win the senate seat...and over all they won seats in the 2000 election.
The general rundown does not show the green picking up votes in the senate the Dems won with 51.04% (2,989,487)...
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2000&fips=12&f=0&off=3&elect=0&class=1
Senate race... (sorry they don't display because of they want people to go to the main site)
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/img.php?type=map&year=2000&fips=12&st=FL&off=3&elect=0&class=1
But in the Presidential race the Green party picked up 1.63% and Gore had 2,912,253...which is less than the Senator got.
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/img.php?type=map&year=2000&fips=12&st=FL&off=0&elect=0
That shows that something does happen, but if they have their own people running in the down ticket race it may not help.
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=2000&f=0&off=3
