anyone know the % third party vote/no top ticket/write in vote got in 2008 and 2012?

[boston bean]

I can't find the numbers easily..

Maybe someone has them handy.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

1. It was...

2012:
Johnson 0.99%
Stein 0.36%
Other 0.50%

2008:
Nader 0.56%
Barr 0.40%
Other 0.58%

2016 so far, not likely to change much at this point:
Johnson 3.27%
Stein 1.01%
Other 1.27%

Source: http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/

[LP2K12]

2. Yep...

Also, while those numbers might not seem huge, they actually held some weight. In my home state of Michigan the Libertarian party is now considered a major party because they took so much of the vote. They'll be able to have candidates in debates as well as being included in the primary.

We needed to swing those voters.

[boston bean]

3. thank you. seems like it made a huge difference in outcome.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. You're welcome.

Here's the "Rust Belt" results that reversed to the GOP this time, plus Florida and Iowa, with the vote changes per party shown in parentheses.

Notice that Obama's 2012 totals surpassed Trump's 2016 totals in each case EXCEPT Florida where the voter turnout was higher for everyone. Third party votes increased most significantly from their 2012 results.

MICHIGAN
2012
Obama 2,564,569
Romney 2,115,256
Other 65,491
2016
Clinton 2,264,807 (-299,762)
Trump 2,277,914 (+162,658)
Other 242,502 (+177,011)

WISCONSIN
2012
Obama 1,620,985
Romney 1,407,966
Other 39,483
2016
Clinton 1,382,947 (-238,038)
Trump 1,407,028 (-938)
Other 187,320 (+147,837)

PENNSYLVANIA
2012
Obama 2,990,274
Romney 2,680,434
Other 84,912
2016
Clinton 2,856,017 (-134,257)
Trump 2,921,707 (+241,273)
Other 259,122 (+174,210)

OHIO
2012
Obama 2,827,709
Romney 2,661,437
Other 101,788
2016
Clinton 2,317,001 (-510,708)
Trump 2,771,984 (+110,547)
Other 291,111 (+189,323)

FLORIDA
2012
Obama 4,237,756
Romney 4,163,447
Other 90,972
2016
Clinton 4,501,455 (+263,699)
Trump 4,615,910 (+452,463)
Other 331,225 (+240,253)

IOWA
2012
Obama 822,544
Romney 730,617
Other 29,019
2016
Clinton 652,820 (-169,724)
Trump 800,467 (+69,850)
Other 111,156 (+82,137)

[kenfrequed]

5. Hmm...

I think it would be more instructive to tease out the "other" vote into their respective parties.

I don't think the Constitution party, the Green party, and the Libertarian party are really that similar.

[kenfrequed]

7. It only appears to

When you subtract the 2012 people from the 2016 that voted Green or Libertarian you could arrive at the maximum persuadable third party voters.

I would only suggest that the libertarian party members would be largely unlikely to vote Hill and anyone that suggests somehow that those people were loyal Berners that just decided to vote for Johnson instead are utterly ignorant of the motivations and thinking of those voters. Any of them that considered voting for Bernie only did so because of his positions internationally and his position regarding the war on drugs. Since Hill has a reputation (fair or not) for being interventionist and did not come out for legalization it is highly unlikely any libertarian would vote for her.

As far as the Greens goes, the hard core of the membership that voted in 2012 were probably willing to cross for Bernie because he was a third party leftist running as a Democrat. His position on the issues drove this.

Ultimately I am actually surprised that a competition between the two most disliked candidates in modern American presidential history didn't result in a much, much higher turn out for third parties. Back in Sept 2015 I pointed out had the election been Clinton vs Bush it would have been an engraved invitation for third party spoilers. The low vote numbers from third candidates almost seems to be one of the few things I was kind of wrong about.

The election should never have been so close that two percentage points would have made a difference.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. I don't think you can really lump Stein and Johnson into the same bucket.

I was curious about the same question, what I came up with for MI and WI was about .5% for the Greens in 2012 and 1% in 2016.

So arguably one could say that that .5% of the Greens is akin to Naderite sentiment that "should have" gone to HRC.

I don't think a similar argument can be made for the Libertarians. My gut feeling is GJ drew more from Republicans than our party, although I do think DWS's public statements in favor of stuff like the criminalization of pot smoking probably kicked a few people in that direction.