Poll: Nearly Half of Voters Would Consider Supporting a Third-Party Candidate

President Joe Biden, Professor Cornel West, and former President Donald Trump (Samuel Coru
Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg, Frederick M. Brown, Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

Nearly half of voters would consider supporting a third-party candidate, the latest Quinnipiac University survey found.

The survey asked respondents, “Would you consider voting for a third-party candidate in the 2024 presidential election, or not?”

Nearly half, 47 percent, said, “Yes,” they would consider supporting a third-party candidate in 2024. Another 47 percent, however, said, “No,” they would not.

A majority of independents, 64 percent, said they would consider voting for a third-party candidate, but Democrats and Republicans were less enthused, as 38 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of Democrats said the same.

Most — 57 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of Democrats — indicated they will not support a third-party candidate in the 2024 presidential election.

The survey also examined each individual primary candidate and found former President Donald Trump leading the Republican primary field with 54 percent among Republicans and those who lean Republican. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis comes in a distant second, 29 points behind with 25 percent support. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence are tied with four percent support each, followed by Sen. Tim Scott and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with three percent support. Another two percent chose anti-woke businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

The survey also found President Joe Biden as the clear frontrunner in the Democrat primary, with 71 percent support among Democrats and those who lean Democrat. Another 14 percent chose Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and seven percent said Marianne Williamson.

The full survey was taken July 13-17, 2023, among 2,065 U.S. adults and has a +/- 2.2 percent margin of error. That included 1,809 self-identified registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.3 percent.

“The survey included 727 Republican and Republican leaning voters with a margin of error of +/- 3.6 percentage points and 763 Democratic and Democratic leaning voters with a margin of error of +/- 3.6 percentage points,” Quinnipiac added.

It follows news of activist Cornel West formally joining the Green Party ticket — a move that some leftists fear will ultimately hurt Biden.

Democrat National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said of West’s run, “This is not the time in order to experiment. This is not the time to play around on the margins.”

“What we see is a lot of folks who want to be relevant and try to be relevant in these elections and not looking at the big picture,” Harrison continued, according to the Hill. “We got to reelect Joe Biden.”

RELATED — Cornel West: Trump Is a ‘Neo-Fascist Gangster;’ Biden Is a ‘Neo-Liberal Hypocrite’

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