Democrats are preparing aggressive countermeasures against third-party threats

The Democratic Party, increasingly alarmed by the possibility that third-party candidates could swing the election to former President Donald J. Trump, has assembled a new team of lawyers to track the threat, especially in key battleground states.

The effort comes as challengers — including independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West plus groups like No Labels and the Green Party – have stepped up their efforts to qualify for state ballots ahead of crucial deadlines in the spring and summer.

The legal offensive, led by Dana Remus, who served as President Biden’s White House counsel until 2022, and Robert Lenhard, an outside lawyer for the party, will be assisted by a communications team dedicated to countering candidates which Democrats fear could spoil the reigns. Biden. It amounts to a kind of legal Whac-a-Mole, a state-by-state counterinsurgency plan ahead of elections that in swing states could depend on just a few thousand votes.

The goal “is to make sure all candidates are following the rules, and to try to hold them accountable if they aren’t,” Mr. Lenhard said.

Third-party candidates have dogged Democrats in recent presidential elections — Ralph Nader is widely blamed for costing Al Gore the White House in 2000, and some in the party have argued that Green Party candidate Jill Stein won the 2016 election. votes from Hillary Clinton. she narrowly lost to Mr Trump in swing states.

There was little third-party activity in 2020, and it is unclear what effect the possible presence of such candidates would have on this year’s ballot. But fears among Democrats are particularly acute this year, with polls suggesting Trump’s support base is much more solid than Biden’s, meaning it’s possible some of the president’s voters may be open to an alternative.

Still, it is difficult to say whether outsider candidates, especially Mr. Kennedy, would draw more from Mr. Trump’s camp or Mr. Biden’s. The conventional wisdom within the Democratic Party now is that every vote not for Mr. Biden benefits Mr. Trump, and there are concerns that giving more choices to Mr. Biden is more likely to hurt Mr.

Gaining entry into presidential elections is a complicated and expensive process for candidates, especially those who are not affiliated with any party, even a minor party. Laws vary from state to state, with some requiring only a fee or a few thousand signatures, and others requiring tens of thousands of signatures collected under tight deadlines, along with other administrative hurdles.

State rules limiting access to ballots “ensure that the people participating in the vote have a legitimate base of support, and it’s not just a vanity project,” Mr. Lenhard said.

Independent candidates and third-party leadership view the restrictive voting laws and efforts to monitor and enforce them as antidemocratic, exemplifying the kind of bipartisan political machinations they say they want to combat.

“What are barriers to access for ballots? They are a barrier to freedom of expression,” said Mr. Nader, who has made four third-party attempts to become president. He described state voting laws in the United States as “the worst in the Western world, by orders of magnitude.”

Measuring the popularity of third-party and independent candidates is a challenge for pollsters. If they aren’t listed in a poll, their support obviously won’t be counted. But when a poll does include them, the results tend to drastically overestimate their support, data shows.

What the polls do make clear is that a significant bloc of American voters is not enthusiastic about Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump.

In recent months, Democrats have become less concerned about No Labels, the political group that had promised to put forward a centrist presidential ticket. The group said voting is underway in 18 states but is struggling to find viable candidates.

Instead, much of Democrats’ energy — and concerns — has focused on the 70-year-old Kennedy, who first challenged Mr. Biden in the primaries before announcing an independent presidential bid. An environmental lawyer and scion of one of America’s great political families, Mr. Kennedy has become even more famous in recent years for his promotion of anti-vaccine falsehoods and conspiracy theories, and for his broadly anti-establishment and anti-corporate ethos. He has name recognition and a donor base.

a recent national poll from Fox News estimates Mr. Kennedy’s support at about 13 percent, with both candidates receiving about equal support. In Georgia, considered a swing state in national elections, he averages around 6 percent in recent polls FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages.

Mr. Kennedy’s campaign says he is officially voting in only one state, Utah, and that he has enough signatures to access the ballots in New Hampshire, Hawaii and Nevada, which also ranks as a key state this year are considered.

A super PAC backing Mr. Kennedy said it had collected enough signatures to get him on the ballot in Arizona, Michigan and Georgia — all swing states — as well as in South Carolina. In February, the Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, accusing the PAC and the Kennedy campaign of unlawful coordination in signature gathering.

The PAC, American Values ​​2024, had pledged last year to spend up to $15 million on Mr. Kennedy’s behalf on ballot access efforts, but announced last week that it would no longer participate in the process. collecting signatures.

Tony Lyons, co-founder of the group, said it would continue to fight the two parties “when they attempt to interfere with the constitutional rights of American voters who overwhelmingly want independent candidates on the ballot.”

While Mr. Lenhard’s team is involved in investigating third-party contenders for possible FEC violations, Democrats see ballot access as the top issue for law enforcement, and the party’s legal team has local contingents of lawyers in the mobilized the entire country, together with analysis, research and field teams. .

Most states require independent candidates to collect thousands of signatures to get on the ballot; some, like Texas and New York, require more than 100,000 names.

A handful of states require a vice president to be on the ticket to guarantee access to ballots.

In some states, forming a new political party is the fastest way for independent candidates to get on the ballot.

Mr. Kennedy and his supporters have formed a party called We the People, which his campaign says will be on the ballot in California, Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi and North Carolina. Mr. West’s supporters have formed the Justice for All party to secure a ballot measure in at least five states.

Mr Lenhard said these new party efforts would be monitored to ensure that “to the extent that you seek status as a new political party, you are in fact a political party – a large group of people who believe what you believes, and not simply a single candidate who wants to circumvent the existing rules.”

For his part, Mr. West has gained access to the ballot in some states through pre-existing small parties, some of which already have guaranteed voting lines. In Oregon, his name will appear as a candidate for the Progressive Party; in South Carolina it is the United Citizens Party; in Alaska he has the Aurora Party line. Mr. West is listed as an independent in Utah.

“I’m not yet aware that the DNC is hostile to us,” said Edwin DeJesus, Mr. West’s campaign manager. director for ballot access. “They will probably bring up the spoiler story closer to the election.”

Before becoming independent, Mr West initially ran for the Green Party, which will name its candidate at a virtual convention in July. Mrs. Stein asks for the appointment again.

A Green Party representative, Gloria Mattera, said the party was on the ballot in 20 states and the District of Columbia, while petitions and lawsuits are ongoing in others.

In February, the Green Party was deemed eligible to get on the ballot in Wisconsin, a state where Ms. Stein won more than 31,000 votes in 2016. That was more than the difference in votes between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump, who won the state. .

Ms. Mattera and other third-party leaders and candidates, including Mr. Nader, dispute arguments that outside candidates are siphoning votes from Democrats, saying that many people who prefer independent or alternative party candidates simply would not vote if they were didn’t have the option. .

They see it as a matter of offering choice.

“Our people will not support the sitting president,” Mr. DeJesus said. “Biden would never earn those votes. We give people a reason to go to the polls.”

Ruth Igielnik, Alyce McFadden and Taylor Robinson contributed reporting.