The Presidential debates are the next great challenge in the 2016 campaign. But thanks to widespread dissatisfaction with the top two candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton may have a little company on the debate stage: Libertarian Gary Johnson.
The third party candidate has surged ahead of Donald Trump among voters aged 35 and younger and driven searches for the “Libertarian Party” through the roof on Google. He counts major musicians among his fans, and is now making a play for Utah.
In national polls, he’s not that far away from clearing 15% in the vote. That’s the threshold for inclusion in the debates, and so Presidential debate hosts are being told to prepare for a third podium.
Producers working with the Committee on Presidential Debates sent the memo to the three universities—Washington University of St. Louis, University of Nevada Las Vegas and Hofstra University—that are hosting Presidential debates this fall. The CPD says they won’t know how many invitations they will be issuing until at least September, but they want venues to be prepared.
“With [former Gov.] Gary Johnson polling in some places more than double digits, they might have, some of our production people may have said, ‘Just in case, you need to plan out what that might look like,’” CPD chair Mike McCurry told POLITICO.
Right now, the CPD considers Johnson’s national poll numbers to be at about 9% (based on a Real Clear Politics polling average), but recent polls have put Johnson as high as 13%. Both IBD and Fox News polls have Johnson at a comfortable 12%.
The CPD isn’t opposed to softening the 15% rule a bit if Johnson (or Green Party nominee, Dr. Jill Stein, for that matter) comes within striking distance of the number. The CPD is within its rights, they say, to issue an invitation if they think the candidate is making a national impact and is within a 3% margin of error.
A concern among Clinton supporters is that Johnson could give Trump an advantage in Presidential debates, largely because Trump’s debate strategy relies on creating confusion and keeping debate participants distracted from substantive issues. With only Clinton on stage, he’d be forced to argue the merits. With extra participants, the chances are higher he could deflect serious questions. (That’s the theory anyways—with Trump, of course, most predictions about what he would or wouldn’t do have turned out to be wide of the mark.)
Of course, that’s if Trump participates. So far, only Clinton has accepted the CPD’s debate invitations. Trump says he wants to move the debates so that they aren’t on opposite Monday Night Football and has called for a meeting with CPD to discuss the debate schedule.
