President Joe Biden and many key Democratic leaders are concerned about the impact a third-party candidate could have on the 2024 election.
Political pundits do not expect a third-party candidate to win the presidency in 2024, but many have noted that a third-party candidate will negatively impact the DNC and benefit the GOP.
Last month, former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke with President Biden in a private meeting about the upcoming election.
The Washington Examiner reported that a source close to the matter shared that during the meeting, Clinton warned Biden about the probability that Cornel West would run as a third-party candidate and that he needed to “take the third-party threat seriously and come up with a way to compensate for it.”
Clinton knows firsthand how a third-party candidate can impact a political race. In 2016 Jill Stein, a Green Party nominee, reportedly siphoned off votes in several key swing states, helping Donald Trump secure a surprise victory.
Validating Clinton’s concerns is a recent national NBC News poll released on Sunday, showing that Biden and Trump are in a virtual tie in a head-to-head match up. However, the poll projected that Biden would lose by three points if a third-party candidate is introduced into the race.