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With a month to go before what is widely expected to be an extraordinarily close election, an extra element of unpredictability looms: In every battleground state, there is at least one third-party or independent presidential candidate on the ballot.
None of these candidates will come anywhere close to winning the presidency. Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, is polling at about 1 percent nationally, according to New York Times polling released last week. Same with Chase Oliver, the Libertarian Party candidate.
But their presence on the ballot in just a few states could take just enough votes away from the major party candidates to tip the balance of the Electoral College and the election, in what is known as the “spoiler” effect.
To be a spoiler in the election, a third-party candidate would “either have to have a large amount of support, or the election has to be remarkably close,” said Bernard Tamas, a professor of political science at Valdosta State University who has written a book on third parties in U.S. politics.
“This may wind up being very, very close in these key swing states,” he said.
The Democratic Party and its allies have been more openly concerned than Republicans, in recent years, about the impact of third-party candidates, and this election is no exception. As they see it, every vote that is not for Vice President Kamala Harris is a vote for former President Donald J. Trump.
“The presidential race could very well come down to a few thousand votes in a handful of states,” said Rahna Epting, the executive director of MoveOn, a liberal activist group. “These third-party candidates — they still remain a big threat this cycle.”
Ms. Stein is the main source of concern for Democrats as the election nears. On Friday, the Democratic National Committee released a television ad against her in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the party’s first ad against a third-party candidate this cycle — saying that “A vote for Stein is really a vote for Trump.”
Ms. Stein is on the ballot in 38 states, including the battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona.
Party representatives have noted that allies of Mr. Trump have backed Ms. Stein’s efforts to get on the ballot in swing states, according to court records, social media posts and campaign finance filings.
At a rally in June, Mr. Trump praised Ms. Stein. “I like her very much,” he said. “You know why? She takes 100 percent from them.”
Media representatives for the Green Party did not respond to requests for comment. In an interview last week, Ms. Stein accused the Democratic Party of corrupting the ballot access system. “The system is complicated by design,” she said. “It is intended not to be understood. It is intended to keep competitors out and to trip them up over, you know, unforeseen, you know, trip wires, which are all over the place.”
Wisconsin has a particularly crowded ballot. In addition to Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris, voters will be able to choose among Ms. Stein and Mr. Oliver; Cornel West, the theologian and independent candidate; Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former independent candidate who now backs Mr. Trump; Randall Terry, the nominee for the Constitution Party; and Claudia De la Cruz, the nominee for the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
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