Gary Johnson listens to questions from audience members during a campaign event on September 13, 2016.
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Given the approval ratings of the two major party candidates, not giving better voice to a reasonable alternative is deplorable. Dr. Stein’s poll numbers, while dismal, were indeed large enough to have carved into Johnson’s final percentage points before the Presidential Debate Commission finally made the call that he hadn’t made the cut.
Incidentally, Johnson does particularly well among millennial voters, who are both more likely to be independent of a political party and less likely to own a landline.
Johnson had faltered in polling of late, dropping to an average of 9% nationwide from a high of 13%.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks during a news conference at South Austin neighborhood Thursday, Sept. 8, . Instead, she may have Gary Johnson to thank. In the last nine presidential elections, Nevada has consistently voted for the overall winning candidate, while North Carolina has voted for the Republican nominee eight times. On Friday, Johnson spokesman Joe Hunter said “that was not an absolute statement”, and that the campaign would “keep doing what we’re doing” in the hope of being included in one of the October debates. Clinton averaged 43 percent, and Donald Trump 40.4 percent.
The nominees of the Libertarian and Green parties will not appear in the first presidential and vice-presidential debates after decisively missing the 15 percent polling threshold established by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The nonpartisan commission has been pulling together the debates since 1988. The CPD said the 15% standard would be reapplied closer to those dates. “Yet, the Republicans and Democrats are choosing to silence the candidate preferred by those millions of Americans”, he said in a statement. Normally the Libertarian candidate has nothing to lose by generating media attention, but Johnson does have something to lose here – he could lose some of the anti-Trump conservative voters who are now backing him to McMullin when they realize that McMullin is a better fit for them ideologically.
Clinton’s bigger problem is a lack of enthusiasm from younger voters, some of whom are defaulting to Johnson and Stein, according to recent polls.
The debate on September 26 will feature only two candidates.
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Johnson, a former New Mexico governor and ex-Republican who is running with former MA governor Bill Weld, has been pushing aggressively to get into the debate.
