3rd (minor) parties in 2004: Any effect?

[Nym90]

Yes, but there is a flaw in your 3rd party analysis. Nader cost Gore votes in New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Oregon too. Buchanan and Browne only cost Bush those states if you assume that Bush gets all of Buchanan and Browne's votes, but Nader still runs. If you take away all 3rd party candidates, which would be the only fair way to assess the effect of the 3rd parties, then Gore wins those 4 states, as well as Florida and New Hampshire.

[Nym90]

Yes, but 2 points Ryan...
I am highly skeptical of the Green party's assessment of how their vote would have broken down, since they definitely want to make it look as though they didn't cost Gore the election. Nader will claim until he's blue in the face that he didn't cost Gore the election at all. So the Green party's own official theories about how their vote would have broken down are probably not accurate because they have an agenda.
Also, I don't see how anyone can say that Gore wouldn't have won if Nader hadn't run, since in Florida, Gore would have needed only about 1/2 of 1% of Nader's voters to vote for him in order to win the election!

[Nym90]

Well, I think Perot would do better than one percent, but probably no more than 4 or 5 percent. He could perhaps still get a decent amount of the vote if he dusted his deficit charts and used them again, and also if he was once again willing to spend a lot of money. It would be interesting to see what he has to say about the current state of the budget deficit. His vote, like 1992 and 1996, would be split fairly evenly between the two parties and from nonvoters in 2000, perhaps slightly more from the Republicans than the Democrats..