Just yesterday, Arizona libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Marc Victor ended his campaign and urged his supporters to back Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters.
Victor was
polling at 1% in a New
York Times/Siena College poll released Monday.
Victor said he
ran for the Senate “to promote and get us in the direction of freedom and
peace and civility"
In his
endorsement of Master, Victor said that Masters is “doing everything he can to
get us very sternly, very smartly in the direction of 'live and let live.' And
that seems like a good tradeoff to me."
Masters participated
in a video conference with Victor and hoped the competition-turned-endorsement will
boost on election day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ismjOQNzsIA
Kelly
leads Masters 51%-45%
in the New York Times/Siena College poll, outside the 4.4 percentage point
margin of error.
Rear Clear Politics which
does an average
of all the polls has designed the race as a toss-up.
Fox
News Power Rankings and
even The Cook Political Report put the Arizona Senate
race as a toss-up which suggests the GOP's chances are improving in this crucial
race which could be crucial in determining which party takes control of the Senate following the
midterms.
Previously Kelly had an emphatic lead of more than 10 points over Masters, however, that majority seems to have melted into thin air.
Why have people changed their minds so drastically?
It's not the people, but rather the polling agencies.
As the late great
Rush Limbaugh used to say, polls taken months before the elections are meant to
influence voters i.e. enthuse Democrats and dispirit Republicans. But as
election day nears, the polling agencies begin to depict the real picture just
to retain some credibility.
Back to third-party candidates overall?
Currently, in the U.S. Senate race Erik Gerhardt in Pennsylvania, Jeremy Kauffman in New Hampshire, Chase Oliver in Georgia, and Neil Scott in Nevada are libertarian candidates running for the Senate in races that seem evenly poised between Republican and Democrat candidates.
Let’s look at the race in Georgia.
Georgian law states that if no candidate gets more than 50%
of the votes on Nov. 8, the Senate race will go to a runoff four weeks later — on
Dec. 6 — between the top two vote-getters.
Rear Clear Politics which
does an average
of all the polls has designed the race as a toss-up with Hershel Walker leading
by 1.6 points.
A new Atlanta Journal-Constitution survey, has Walker at 45.5 percent, Raphael Warnock at 45.2 percent, and Chase Oliver at 4.8 percent.
Oliver seems poised to cause a run-off. However he has no compunctions about this, he told Fox 5 Atlanta, “If I cause a runoff, I’m happy that happens because it will show that voters are frustrated with the two parties, and they want better options.”
Libertarians who
stand for freedom and small government are known to poach on Republican votes.
Oliver even claimed that he can expound
Republican principles than Walker:
“I feel like
[Walker] is unable to really articulate the principles of limited government,
small government, lower taxes. If you can’t properly articulate that, and in
particular in a debate to defend those ideas, then I don’t think voters are
going to have faith in you.”
However, there is
more to Oliver who seems unclear
about libertarian principles.
He is pro-choice and said that if he was in
the US Senate, he would have drafted a bill “to protect the bodily autonomy of
women and codify abortion into law.”
Chase is also in favor of ending cash bail claiming that"
"Bail is forcing people who have not been convicted of a crime to pay for their pretrial freedom. The bail bond industry is built on the backs of the poor and mostly those arrested in the War on Drugs 500k people are in jail right now not convicted of anything but being poor."
These ideas will turn
off GOP voters and independent voters
who are sick of crime, it is unlikely to earn him Democrat voters
Libertarians
support a fair criminal justice system, but they also know it’s necessary to
protect individual safety and property rights. Ending cash bail clearly
conflicts with these principles.
There are other third-party candidates in Senate races.
In Pennsylvania where
the race is very close, there is Erik Gerhardt.
In New Hampshire once again where the race is close there is Jeremy
Kauffman. Finally, in the closely contested race in Nevada, there is Neil
Scott.
Beyond the senate, there are Gubernatorial races and House races that are also very competitive but have third-party candidates.
There is Shane Hazel who is the Libertarian Georgia gubernatorial candidate and there is Betsy Johnson who is the Independent Oregon gubernatorial candidate who could change the course of their respective close contests.
If all of these candidates drop out and endorse their GOP rival, they will all increase the chances of the Republican winning
We must remember that these third-party candidates can be misused.
These are desperate times for Democrats, it is seemingly increasingly likely that they will lose both the House and the Senate. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
They have already exploited the attack on Paul Pelosi to baselessly claim it was right-wing violence.
There are reports that Biden may have also been attempting to change the rules.
They could support third-party candidates via the backdoor who can spoil the race.
The Democrats did interfere in the GOP primary to facilitate the election of the most 'extreme' candidate whom they think had a slim chance of winning. But the polls now indicate that these very candidates are likely to triumph.
Despite the possibilities of backdoor deals between third-party candidates and the Democrats, they still have the right to participate in elections.
In a Democracy, each and every citizen has a right to vote and also has the right to contest elections, irrespective of motive and as long as laws haven't been violated
The Republicans will have to work harder and campaign more persuasively and make the ‘spoiler’ irrelevant.
Also appears on American Thinker
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