Quote:
Originally posted by Auris
Johnson IS a major candidate whether y'all like it or not. He's inching towards the debate stage and is polling above 10% in many polls. He will be a major factor of this election and can swing it either way depending on where his support mainly comes from in the end. He IS a major candidate and you simply can't argue against it.... Any candidate who will have a massive effect on the election is major in my book.
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No offense, but it certainly can be argued against, and I will argue it below.
Firstly, he is not inching closer and closer to the debates.
You need to be polling at 15% to be given a spot at the debates. He is not close to that. In four way polls conducted over the past two weeks, he has consistently polled 10 points or under, with only one poll, from IBD/TPP placing him above at 12%, with many polls placing him as low as 6-8%.
You can see the most recent polling of a four way race between Clinton, Trump, Johnson and Stein here;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...#Four-way_race
In fact, out of the 20 most recent polls listed on the above page, his average is 8 points. That's approximately where his level of support has been for months. It's not inching upwards.
You can argue that one or two polls can be off, but you can't argue that 20 polls from various different pollsters are all going to be incorrect.
And as Nate Silver pointed out in a recent article, historically support for third party candidates often drops as the election gets closer because voters tend to solidify around their bases (example of this; the majority of Bernie Sanders supporters are coming around to supporting Clinton as the election draws closer). That doesn't mean that a candidate can't buck the trend, but it does mean that voters will most likely follow suit with past voting behavior.
AND, all these polls were before the announcement of the Never Trump movement running an independent candidate whom now has the potential to take voters who are Never Trump away from Johnson now that they have a republican alternative to Trump.
Due to the reasons above, there is actually a good chance that he inches further and further away from being in the debates.
I understand that you are a supporter of Johnson, but you can't yet claim that there is no argument to be had as to whether or not Johnson is a major party candidate or that he is even going to make it onto the debates. There is a legitimate argument to be had, as the poll numbers indicate.
As with any election, things can change, but as it stands now, it's unlikely he will make it to the debates, and thus unlikely that he will be a huge factor come election day.
she's coming for those red states. What's wrong with being Confident
Her comment was vastly different, yet she was dragged when she said it and then APOLOGIZED.