Kellyanne Conway has been a great guest host since her time with the Trump administration and I’m glad that she’s still around and making appearances. I feel like she always has had a level objective view of the political field.
Yesterday she was on Fox and was asked about the role that Cornel West might play in the upcoming 2024 election. Many times people discount 3rd party candidates because they don’t have a “real” chance to win.
However, what many people don’t realize is that even though they can’t win, they can still have a MASSIVE impact on the field. She dropped a pretty big bombshell on the show and I think it could spell disaster for the Biden campaign.
She was asked “Isn’t this candidacy more threatening to Biden in general election (esp. w/ young & voters of color) than RFK Jr in the primary?” and boy should you check out her response:
“The answer to that is yes. It’s very likely,” Conway said in response to Walter’s question. ”Amy Walter is onto something, and I’ll tell you why: Even if you don’t become president, you, as a third-party candidate spoiler, can decide who is the president.”
Let me break it down for you. When you are running as a democrat in the democrat primary, then even if you get 20% of the vote, you still lose and Biden becomes the candidate of choice. You might shift him on a few talking points but ultimately you turned out to have no impact unless you just wanted a seat in his administration.
BUT – if you are running 3rd party, then ANY votes that you get are in the general election, NOT the primary. This is a huge difference and could have a ground-shaking impact.
Cornel West is running left of Biden which means that if Biden wants any support he gains he’s going to have to move even farther left which will alienate any support he has in the middle. If Trump or DeSantis or whoever on the right gets 50% of the vote, Cornel West gets 5% of the vote, that means that likely Biden only got 45% of the vote.
West won’t be stealing any support from the right, but he will be stealing support from the left. He could essentially decide the next President of the United States.
“He’s going to make a play for people who feel forgotten, who feel abandoned by this Democratic Party, who feel like nobody’s listening to them and including them. It’s part of how Trump won in 2016, but I think he could do it from the left,” Conway said, later adding, “I know him. He’s a super smart guy. He’s very committed to the principles and policies that he thinks more Americans want to hear.”
I bet you never thought you’d be cheering on Cornel West did you? Politics is a funny game like that sometimes. Let’s just hope and pray that he can take enough support away from Biden to not make this a close race.
Source: The Hill
