If I live in a red state, would it be better to vote for rfk to take votes away from trump?
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No, that's not how it works. It would be the same as not voting at all, since RFK has no chance of winning.
Vote for Biden if you want to stop Trump.
It depends on the state. If it’s a purple state or a state where they do ranked-choice voting, then this is right and a vote for Biden is helpful.
If OP is in a solid red state, he can vote for any alternative candidate and it won’t matter which alt candidate he chooses since Trump will already have it locked up.
The only asterisk is if abortion is on the ballot as a statewide measure. That can take a red state (like Kentucky) and turn out enough voters to temporarily make it blue.
Every state is a purple state. If all the voters who usually stay home voted, any state could go for Biden.
I was under the impression that the OP wanted to vote tactically, but if that isn't relevant in their particular state, then they should vote their preference.
Since RJK is an unhinged anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist, I would suggest voting for Biden, since it may move the needle for future elections.
I guarantee you Biden will outperform RFK in every state, including Wyoming and Missippi.
Voting for RFK helps him pass the threshold for federal party funding and effectively gives money to a nut.
There are people who think the bOtH SiDeS people are a strawman. To them, I present aviationeast.
If you want Biden to win vote for Biden. Jesus fucking Christ.
Gaming primaries is a potentially valid idea but in what world do you think voting for the other candidate in a winner-takes-all election would help your desired candidate win?
I mean statistically in a state THAT red your there will never be enough blue votes to overcome the stupidity of the rural class, so it may not matter. Still voting for the off brand inside a 2 party system is a very bad habit to encourage. Just vote for Biden.
Georgia proved that wrong last election. Imagine if out of nowhere Texas voted blue due to all the abortion bans, Republicans would shit themselves.
Well, the largest group in Texas is Latinos... idk how many of them can vote and how mant would actually vote blue though.
America will always be a 2 party system. But a different party could replace one of the existing parties.
If that were the case anymore, it would've happened after the 1912 election when Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive party got more votes (27.4%) and electors (88) than the Republican Taft (23.2% of the vote and 8 electors). But it didn't. Things went back to normal after that. That was also the election where the Socialist party gained the most votes (6% of the vote and 0 electors).
The Republicans and Democrats are here to stay until our voting system is overhauled.
No. Vote Biden.
UPDATE: Vote Harris!*
If you can spare the time or money, volunteer and donate to the campaign in places they can actually win.
EDIT: Also, vote Democrat if there are any other elections going on at the same time. If Trump does win, the only chance of holding him to any kind of account is to have as many Democrats in positions of power as possible.
Sincerely, someone who can't vote in your elections but still lives with the knock-on effects!
*EDIT 2: Absolute necro-editing to change this to say Vote Harris.
It's a red state. No chance of anything but a Trump win.
Please explain why their "not TRUMP" vote should be given to Biden?
Being a red state doesn't guarantee a Trump win though. In the last election he assumed Georgia would put him over the top because they are historically a red state but they actually ended up swinging over to blue by a small majority.
There was a huge controversy around it because Trump called up people there and told them to tamper with the numbers to let him win anyway
The Republican party is counting on the idea that people forget these things quickly lol
OK, but OP mentioned a Red state specifically. They want a more nuanced answer than "vote blue just in case".
Assume a state so red, Trump loving and Biden hating that there is no possibility of a blue win. Is voting Biden in that particular state still the best strategy for the future of the USA?
There is never no possibility. Florida is considered a red state up there with texas and gore lost to it from a florida court decision on hanging chads.
Florida wasn't a red state, more democrats have won than Republicans in Florida. It's the past few years thing that the racism is taking hold quickly.
that just shows a state can change and it can change at any time. enough folks could get fed up that with your vote the outcome is different. Politics is like the stock market. You can use historical trends to guess at the future but historical trends do not always indicate future behaviour.
To demonstrate the lack of a “clear mandate”.
Yes, Trump will win if he gets one more vote than Biden, but the more he loses the popular vote by, the more justification people have for protesting.
So if he wins on electoral college votes but loses the popular vote by a landslide, at least it shows what The People are actually thinking.
We can just as easily define the popular vote as being the sum of all non Trump votes.
No Trump doesn't need to be Yes Biden.
It doesn’t matter how you define it. It matters how the people that report on it define it. And almost universally, that’s horse race numbers.
Third parties are pretty much invisible for 95% of people until they start breaking into the horse race.
Nobody have a fuck about Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan till they mattered for the result of the actual election in 2000. But only after the fact.
It matters how the people that report on it define it.
No, it matter how the strategy analysts view the raw data. Not the media.
Third parties are pretty much invisible for 95% of people until they start breaking into the horse race.
Only if you focus on winning. Bernie didn't run in the primaries to win. He ran to influence.
Because trumpets will always vote Trump. People voting for third party may not be actively supporting Trump, but the 3rd party has zero chance of winning so the only way to keep Trump from winning is to vote for who actually can win against him currently. Which is biden.
Because there are lots of other people who are not Trump.
Voting for candidates with more extreme policies shifts the political needle, even if they don't win.
OP has given us no info about the candidates they're considering other than RFK, who is a lunatic. There's no merit to encouraging RFK's views, so Biden should be OP's choice.
RFK has significantly less lunacy than Trump, and is much more coherent than both Biden and Trump.
He still supports Israel though, so there is no anti genocide candidate.
The way RFK makes (coherent) arguments in public is streets ahead of Biden and Trump, but so is almost any politician.
In terms of honesty, RFK is between Biden and Trump. Half truths and populism, rather than the full lies of Trump.
Voting for other candidates only shifts the needle if they win. If they can't possibly win, nothing is accomplished by voting for them.
Incorrect. Bernie shifted the needle and didn't win.
On Thursday he rolled out two new policy proposals:
"Senator Sanders and his supporters can take pride in their work in laying the groundwork for these ideas,
Bernie didn't win the presidency but still got some of his policies adopted by the president.
You don't need to win to have influence.
No. What? No! In what world does this make any sense? The only way your vote for RFK could possibly "take away" a vote from Trump, is if you were going to vote for Trump but changed your mind.
Your vote doesn't affect the vote count of the other candidates...
No because RFK is a fucking joke - When states are called solid "red" or "blue" they're usually 60+% in favor of a party. More people in your state are voting for Biden than RFK so if you're hoping to flip your state vote for the democrat.
I feel like in most states, non-voters overwhelm the difference between the two candidates. Vote s d find a friend to vote with.
No, it's better for you to vote for Biden and convince Trumpers to vote for RFK. You want those who vote for Trump to vote for RFK for a spoiler effect
If you live in a red state and want Trump to not get your EC votes, your most likely path to success is voting for Biden and trying as hard as you can to convince people who don’t usually vote to also do so. Voting for RFK won’t change the tally enough.
Because of our garbage voting system, any vote not going to the top two candidates is the same as scribbling over that section of the ballot. If your goal is to not have Donald win, you want to add as many votes as you can for the other of the top two candidates.
The only way a vote for RFK would help prevent Donald is if it were coming from someone who otherwise certainly would have voted for Donald. Even then the ideal is that they vote for an opponent who has a chance of winning.
That's not true. Voting third party helps get them funding and ballot access. If your vote for president won't change anything, then vote for the most utility.
No third party will ever be viable until FPTP is removed. No funding will change that. Source: basically every single election.
The funding gives them visibility though. Without third parties that people know and might vote for, there would be no additional challengers to point to when arguing for ranked choice voting or anything else. If there are no Green, Libertarian, Constitution voters, then FPTP loses a good portion of its luster.
Additionally, if enough people vote 3rd party, the big two may shift to win those voters back. We saw an interesting situation with the Libertarians and the Republicans this time around where the Libertarians weren't going to primary a candidate against the Republican if the Republican met certain qualifications. If the Democrats lose even a percentage point to the greens in a tight race, they can possibly get that voter back by representing their interests to show that they are also green.
Having said all that, I agree that FPTP is a big problem and is strongly contributing to the toilet bowl death spiral American politics is experiencing.
I was talking about benefits to vote for them. Those were non-election uses of voting third party.
Why not vote (D)? The Rs plan on contesting the voting everywhere all the time, and if the last round was any indicator, they will even contest in places the win, so.... IF the goal is to take votes from Trump, it would probably be better to show that even in fire red areas, there are still some cool blues.
When people say that, they mean a person who would have voted for trump. Instead voting rfk.
If you were never voting trump, you vote can't be taken away because it was never voting for trump to begin with
If you are in a deep red state, it will seem that your vote won't matter. Because it mostly won't. However, the way States vote changes over time. The closer the vote totals in a State, the more likely the National Democratic Party is to invest resources into building up and promoting candidates in those States. That sort of thing can shift the needle, if slowly. Keep in mind that California voted Republican from '68 to '88 (source) but shifted over time.
It sucks to vote and feel like you're just pissing in the wind. But, each vote moves the needle just a bit more and maybe, eventually, things will swing.
Using that argument, can't you shift the needle even more by voting for someone more left than Biden?
No, because your vote won't encourage investment in flipping the State. I agree that the current duopoly sucks. I was an ardent Bernie supporter and would very much like viable third parties. But, the DNC isn't going to be looking at those third party votes. They need to believe that the Democrats have a chance of winning before they will invest in a State. If all they see are protest votes, then they won't see a viable path to them winning and they will continue to ignore the State.
Ya, it sucks, but we really do need to just keep holding our nose and pulling the lever for the Democrat in the general election.
Disagree. If many vote for an extreme eco warrior independent candidate then both parties will shift their policies to appeal to those voters.
Americans don't need to vote for winners for their vote to count.
Kennedy is only on the ballot in 14 states, so first, it's unlikely he'll be on your ballot.
Alaska, California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah.
Each state has their own process, generally you have to submit enough signatures.
They also have their own deadlines... beyond which signatures are not accepted.
the answer you are looking for the opportunity has already passed this year but is useful in the next election.
What you ate looking for is to vote tactically. Vote republican in the in the primary and choose weak republican candidates then vote democratic in the general.
Depends....Which state you are living in. The state I am currently stationed at does not allow write in because it is all comuterrised.