A new poll shows President Biden beating former President Trump in a 2024 presidential matchup, even if Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) launches a third-party bid.
No Labels, a political group that has been pushing for a third-party bid, hosted an event Monday headlined by Manchin and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R), fueling speculation that the duo could appear as a bipartisan third-party ticket. The Monmouth poll released Thursday found if a Manchin-Huntsman ticket were to join the race as an alternative to Biden or Trump, only 2 percent of voters would definitely vote for the alternative, while 14 percent would probably vote for them.
Forty-four percent of voters would not vote for a Manchin-Huntsman ticket, and 31 percent said they probably would not. The poll noted the responses were not affected by whether Manchin or Huntsman was at the top of the ticket.
Biden’s support dropped from 47 percent to 37 percent and Trump’s dropped from 40 percent to 28 percent when a generic bipartisan ticket was offered as an alternative to Biden and Trump. When voters were asked about a potential Manchin-Huntsman ticket, Biden’s support dipped from 47 percent to 40 percent and Trump’s decreased from 40 to 34 percent.
The poll also asked voters who they would support if they believed a third-party candidate would be a “spoiler.” In the hypothetical scenario where voting for a third party could help elect Biden to the White House, 39 percent said they would vote for Biden, 37 percent said Trump and 20 percent would vote for the third party.
Inversely, when voting for a third party would help elect Trump, 43 percent of voters said they would support Biden, 33 percent would support Trump and 20 percent would vote for a third party. Overall, the poll found Biden would still have the most support even if a bipartisan ticket ran.
“The expectation that a third-party run could tip the scales toward Biden might produce a tighter contest than when the spoiler effect is seen to help Trump,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, in a statement. “Again, these are hypotheticals. It’s impossible to predict the impact of a third-party challenge until an actual campaign is underway, when the media’s framing of it will play an important role.”
The poll is based on responses from 840 registered voters collected between July 12-17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.