Expect a third party spike

Trump and Clinton are among the worst candidates to ever come out of the two major parties. Most people vote for the lesser of two evils. There are some, however, who will not vote for either of these candidates.


I'm going to make a quick prediction. In 2016, we will see an abnormal percentage of the vote going to third parties. This will still be a relatively small percentage due to people fearing wasting their votes, but it will be much higher than we are used to.

Personally, I would like to see more people embrace third parties. You can argue that a vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Hillary or that a vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Trump. Heck, Hillary and Trump are better defined by their similarities than their differences. It's essentially a vote between Hillary Trump and Donald Clinton. A vote for Trump is essentially a vote for Hillary and a vote for Hillary is essentially a vote for Trump. An argument can certainly be made that a vote for Hillary or Trump is a vote to support the two-party system. As long as people vote for horrible candidates because they fear voting for the best candidate, we are going to be stuck in this pattern.

I don't want to get my hopes up too high. Third parties might finally gain a small amount of attention, but it won't last. Their higher vote totals will still be insignificant on the election's outcome. The candidate who finishes a distant third will not be remembered, and it is unlikely that the next election will be this screwed up. Next election, we will be back to a strict bad D versus bad R.