Although the poll only asked about those four candidates, there are going to be eight people on the presidential ballot in Idaho – these four plus Scott Copeland on the Constitution Party line; Darrell Castle, who is the national Constitution Party’s nominee but is appearing on Idaho’s ballot as an independent; Evan McMullin, a conservative who is running for president as an independent; and Rocky De La Fuente, a businessman who campaigned unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Advertisement
The record unpopularity of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is making Libertarian Gary Johnson a lot more popular, as discontented voters from both parties look for a less-loathsome alternative, a new Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll shows.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote in a Sunday editorial that it would back Johnson because “neither [Republican nominee] Donald Trump nor [Democratic nominee] Hillary Clinton meets the fundamental moral and professional standards we have every right to expect of an American president”.
The paper, which has endorsed the Republican nominee for president every year for the last three decades, hailed Johnson’s stances for limited government, social tolerance and individual freedom.
The editorial board touts Johnson as “a man of good integrity, apparently normal ego and sound ideas”, and that at 63, “is also the youngest candidate” and “polling well among truly young voters”.
The endorsement came after a meeting between Johnson and the paper’s editorial board last week.
Both third-party candidates have blasted the rule that has been in place since the 2000 election cycle and requires each candidate to reach 15 percent support in an average of five national polls before qualifying for the debates. “Why not take this chance to reject the binary choice between Clinton and Trump that was created by our two-party system?”
The latest poll, which was done from August 18 to 31, shows 44 percent support for the Republican presidential candidate Trump and 23 percent for the Democratic candidate Clinton.
Johnson has the backing of only one sitting member of the U.S. House – with no sitting senators or governors.
Advertisement
By supporting Johnson, the newspaper broke its tradition of supporting the Republican ticket, as it did with Mitt Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008.
