Centrist third party's path to 270

[Sir Mohamed]

Although very unlikely to emerge within the next years, how might a path to 270 EVs look like for centrist third party?

Here is my suggestion for an open 2024 election (in 2020, Donald Trump defeats Elizabeth Warren/Julian Castro in the electoral college but loses the PV again by about 1.2%).

✓ Businessman Richard Knox (Moderate-WA)/General John Martinez (Moderate-TX): ~ 280 EVs.; 40.9%*
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ)/Governor Gwen Graham (D-FL): ~ 160 EVs.; 30.3%
Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)/Senator Tim Scott (R-SC).; ~ 100 EVs.; 27.3%

* fictional characters

[America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗]

Although very unlikely to emerge within the next years, how might a path to 270 EVs look like for centrist third party?

Here is my suggestion for an open 2024 election (in 2020, Donald Trump defeats Elizabeth Warren/Julian Castro in the electoral college but loses the PV again by about 1.2%).

✓ Businessman Richard Knox (Moderate-WA)/General John Martinez (Moderate-TX): ~ 280 EVs.; 40.9%*
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ)/Governor Gwen Graham (D-FL): ~ 160 EVs.; 30.3%
Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)/Senator Tim Scott (R-SC).; ~ 100 EVs.; 27.3%

* fictional characters

What would this parties path to victory look like on the county level?

[Hydera]

Although very unlikely to emerge within the next years, how might a path to 270 EVs look like for centrist third party?

Here is my suggestion for an open 2024 election (in 2020, Donald Trump defeats Elizabeth Warren/Julian Castro in the electoral college but loses the PV again by about 1.2%).

✓ Businessman Richard Knox (Moderate-WA)/General John Martinez (Moderate-TX): ~ 280 EVs.; 40.9%*
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ)/Governor Gwen Graham (D-FL): ~ 160 EVs.; 30.3%
Vice President Mike Pence (R-IN)/Senator Tim Scott (R-SC).; ~ 100 EVs.; 27.3%

* fictional characters

What would this parties path to victory look like on the county level?

45%-60% in Greater than 50% White suburbs

35%-60% in Suburbs where White voters are At least 40% if the demographics


Areas they won't win but will have some presence.  I'd say 10-25% in rural areas mainly amongst the middle class and higher. And 10-40% in Urban areas with the strongest being in neighborhoods with a large middle class/professional/yuppie/etc component.

[Pennsylvania Deplorable]

Impossible. Centrists are a tiny minority and the two parties are very powerful. A populist could do better than a centrist (historically this has happened as in 1912, 1992, and to some degree 1968. FDR was worried about a Huey Long independent run before he was killed as well), but with Trump's win the Ross Perot voters were largely brought into the GOP fold.

The majority of moderates do not hold a position exactly in the middle of the mainstream on all or even most issues, but rather they hold views that are often very far left or right on certain things but balance out to a degree because they don't fit in with either party. Thus, it's possible to find people who would identify as moderate but voted for Bernie and then for Trump.

If somehow this did happen, I think the map should show the deep south voting democrat because the white vote would be split and the black vote would largely stay with the democrats. It would be a weird electoral map.

[Skill and Chance]

A Bloomberg-ish 3rd party wins 10 of the 11 largest states plus some more EV in New England.

[Hydera]

A Bloomberg-ish 3rd party wins 10 of the 11 largest states plus some more EV in New England.

Or a Jesse Ventura-ish campaign who had a socially liberal economically conservative platform, basically centrist but had huge populist appeal that allowed him to turn out a lot of lower middle/working class voters.

[Skill and Chance]

A Bloomberg-ish 3rd party wins 10 of the 11 largest states plus some more EV in New England.

Or a Jesse Ventura-ish campaign who had a socially liberal economically conservative platform, basically centrist but had huge populist appeal that allowed him to turn out a lot of lower middle/working class voters.

That group is never, ever going to vote for a socially liberal/economically conservative movement.

[Former President tack50]

Well, first you would need 2 very bad and extremist candidates from the major parties, as well as that centrist independent being at least somewhat populist.

Looking at the third party vote in 2016 and just extrapolating, the hypothetical map would probably look something like this:

Centrist independent: 280
Republican: 155
Democrat: 96

[Hydera]

A Bloomberg-ish 3rd party wins 10 of the 11 largest states plus some more EV in New England.

Or a Jesse Ventura-ish campaign who had a socially liberal economically conservative platform, basically centrist but had huge populist appeal that allowed him to turn out a lot of lower middle/working class voters.

That group is never, ever going to vote for a socially liberal/economically conservative movement.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/1998/states/MN/G/exit.poll.html


It actually happened. He won a plurality on almost all of the income brackets but that being said his best performance was amongst $50-75,000.

However most of his performance was just getting a huge amount of voters who said they had dissatisfaction with national politics and it was a one time thing that couldn't be replicated in the next election.

[uniters-centrist]

Bit of a tangent, but a much more likely scenario that could lead to a centrist winning would be one some years down the line where enough centrists have been elected into Congress to keep either party from a majority, then a centrist presidential candidate wins a plurality - not 270 - of the electoral college and popular vote.

This would send the election to the House, and given that said fictional centrist was the highest vote getter, and the fact that neither party had enough votes to put their candidate in office, one or the other might decide that they'll throw their votes behind the centrist (perhaps in exchange for some number of cabinet posts, among other horse trading), to ensure that the polar opposite party doesn't end up in the Oval Office.

[Cynthia]

Senator John Donnelly (I-IN)/Governor John Kasich (I-OH) 284EV
Governor Mike Capuano (D-MA)/Representative Zephyr Teachout (D-NY) 157EV
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR)/Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R-AL) 97EV

NE: Cotton/Sessions 3EV, Donnelly/Kasich 2EV
ME: Donnelly/Kasich 3EV, Capuano/Teachout 1EV