It's starting to sound like Gary Johnson could have a pretty substantial effect on the Presidential election. According to some polls, he could pull as much as 5% of the vote - mostly the Ron Paul contingent of the Republican party. He would probably pull some votes from Obama as well, but Republican lawyers are working overtime to prevent him from getting on ballots, and failing that, from being able to effectively campaign in many states. Clearly, Republicans are worried about him in a very tight election.
It's hard to say how many people who vote for Johnson wouldn't have voted at all if he wasn't on the ballot, but the general theory seems to be that he pulls two Romney votes for every one Obama vote, except in Colorado where the number is about one-to-one.
It's an interesting development. Empircally, it seems to me that lots of Americans are disgusted with this entire campaign on both sides, and a protest vote might start sounding better all the time to them. We'll see.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/14/gary-johnson-thinks-mitt-romney-is-out-to-get-him.html
It's hard to say how many people who vote for Johnson wouldn't have voted at all if he wasn't on the ballot, but the general theory seems to be that he pulls two Romney votes for every one Obama vote, except in Colorado where the number is about one-to-one.
It's an interesting development. Empircally, it seems to me that lots of Americans are disgusted with this entire campaign on both sides, and a protest vote might start sounding better all the time to them. We'll see.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/14/gary-johnson-thinks-mitt-romney-is-out-to-get-him.html
