Democratic jitters grow over Cornel West’s third-party bid

Cornel West’s third-party presidential campaign is stirring up unpleasant flashbacks to 2016 for members of the Democratic Party, some of whom are starting to grow anxious about the effect it could have on President Biden’s reelection.

West, a philosopher, Ivy League academic and leftist, recently announced he is newly registered with the Green Party as he seeks to challenge Biden and the eventual Republican nominee for the White House.

Now, some prominent figures supporting Biden, from the head of the Democratic National Committee to veteran campaign hands, are already sounding the alarm about his quixotic White House run.

“This is not the time in order to experiment. This is not the time to play around on the margins,” warned DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison, a close Biden confidant, over the weekend.

Seven years ago, when Hillary Clinton lost to former President Donald Trump, many in her orbit blamed Green Party nominee Jill Stein as a factor that contributed to her defeat. Heading into 2024, Democrats worry West could emerge as a similar spoiler by earning just enough votes to fracture the coalition Biden needs to win.

“In 2016, the Green Party played an outsized role in tipping the election to Donald Trump,” wrote David Axelrod, who served as former President Obama’s chief strategist, on Twitter last weekend. “Now, with Cornel West as their likely nominee, they could easily do it again. Risky business.”

The concerns come as Democrats stare down yet another possible race against Trump. After multiple indictments and other potentially consequential legal entanglements, he’s polling well ahead of his rivals for the Republican nomination, and Democrats are already preparing for the third consecutive general election with him as their opponent. 

Biden’s allies are warning publicly that there’s little room for error. If the twice-impeached former president is again his party’s nominee, they see a hard and unpredictable fight on the horizon and are calling for loyalty and focus. West’s bid complicates that path to victory, some suggest. 

“What we see is a lot of folks who want to be relevant and try to be relevant in these elections and not looking at the big picture,” Harrison said, adding, “We got to reelect Joe Biden.”

While Democrats continue to be haunted by what happened in 2016, there are some notable differences between then and now. Clinton was, in millions of voters’ minds, a highly flawed candidate with a family history and political track record that made many uncomfortable. Some of those voters in key battleground states found Stein, who ran twice on the Green Party ticket and is now advising West, an appealing alternative.

There was also a widespread assumption at the time that Clinton would beat Trump and that a third-party vote on principle would not make much of a difference. 

“In 2016, it was clear to me and other organizers that a significant number of voters were unwilling to vote for Hillary Clinton because of her record supporting disastrous wars and were willing to vote Green Party as a protest vote, under the assumption Clinton would win anyway,” said Alexander McCoy, a progressive operative and organizer. 

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Biden is different for a number of reasons, Democrats say, in part due to his policy considerations during his first term.

“I don’t think that will happen again to the same scale,” McCoy said, “because Joe Biden ended the war in Afghanistan and has kept U.S. troops out of new conflicts like Ukraine. A Donald Trump presidency also feels more real to people.”

Democrats are just starting to express concerns about West after previously ignoring his newly formed campaign. So far, he’s had some defenders. West, a surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2020 and a former Harvard scholar, has been praised by those who share the progressive senator’s worldview, mostly for the activist-minded spirit he brings and his commitment to leftist ideology.

His allies see his candidacy as a way to show policy distinctions with Biden and to introduce more progressive ideas to the voting public. Still, even some of his admirers acknowledge he could hurt the incumbent president in favor of the GOP.

They just hope that doesn’t happen.

“Dr. West and his supporters’ ideas and frustrations deserve to be heard, but hopefully, that doesn’t come at the cost of the worst possible candidate winning again because of our antiquated electoral system,” said Hassan Martini, executive director of No Dem Left Behind, a progressive group focused on rural voters.

“Many of West’s ideas already have a home within our party, and our party winning enough elections is key to making those ideas a reality,” he said. 

Some progressives close to West want him to agitate Biden further. They’d like to see him debate the president but concede there’s a slim chance of that happening.

Biden “risks the same thing that scared the hell out of neoliberals in 2016,” said Nina Turner, a staunch progressive and former state senator from Ohio who worked with West on Sanders’s last campaign. 

“The ideas of the progressive left are popular with the majority of the American people,” she said, suggesting West has tapped into something Biden has not.

Progressives indeed helped Biden attract a broad support base in 2020. That included many who weren’t overly enthusiastic about his candidacy but showed up out of fear or anger toward Trump. Now, some Democrats say they could entertain voting for other choices this time around, and that West could prove to be a dark horse.

One Democratic campaign strategist said Biden should include West in conversations about the direction of the party as a way to keep him and fellow progressives on board. 

“Get them in a f—ing room and ask what they want and include it in the platform,” the strategist said, adding progressives love West’s run. “I think they’ll be happy if he moves Biden[’s] rhetoric left.”

West did not respond to a request for comment by publication time. 

It’s still very early in the cycle, but a sizable number of voters — 44 percent — are willing to contemplate a third-party presidential candidate, according to an NBC News poll released in late June. 

There’s also a considerable lack of appetite for a redo of the last election. A CNN/SSRS survey also taken last month found 31 percent of voters polled did not want either Trump or Biden to be their respective party’s nominee.

“We are confident that the Democratic Party best serves Dr. West’s agenda,” said Martini, of No Dem Left Behind. “Maybe not completely, but certainly far more than if Republicans can cement Supreme Court dominance for the next 30-40 years.”

“It would be terrible for his legacy and our country if his candidacy leads to the reelection of a man who seriously threatens to destroy our Democracy and the rule of law,” he said.