LogFAQs > #979197542

crazyisgood posted...

A vote for a third party candidate does not work in favor of Trump or Biden. Unless maybe you are in a state that could go either way.

Voting third-party works in favour of whichever candidate has the fewest third-party alternatives to split the vote. Philosophically, that's more likely to favour conservative/regressive candidates over a progressive one, by simple virtue of there being more ways to progress and try new things than to stay the same/revert to a past state. In practice, of course, it really depends how many candidates there are and which main ones they most closely align with, since that affects whose votes they split.

In the US, the observed trend is that lower voter turnout favours the GOP, especially when looking at more politically educated demographics. Voting third-party is functionally comparable to not voting at all, and given that those voting third-party tend to be more politically educated (instead of just voting for whoever their parents/peers do like so many voters), it can be expected that a higher third-party turnout will favour the GOP.