Poll: Challenges for Paul, Trump, Bloomberg in Third Party Candidacy
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Alex Wong/Getty Images | ABC/Ida Mae Astute | The City of New York(NEW YORK) — It won’t be easy for the three top-mentioned possibilities — Ron Paul, Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — to undertake the task of mounting a third-party candidacy for president. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that each would have significant challenges were he to do so.
Americans divide evenly in basic favorable versus unfavorable views of Paul — unchanged from last month — and Paul faces serious questions even in his own party both on his personal qualifications and the policies he’d pursue if elected.
Trump, while more popular than Paul among Republicans, and the best known of the three, is the least popular overall. More Americans view him unfavorably than favorably, by 48 percent to 40 percent.
Bloomberg is much less known — 44 percent of Americans haven’t formed an opinion of him — and, like Paul, gets just an even split among those who have. He’s most popular among liberal Democrats, a group that comprises only 12 percent of the public overall.
That’s not to say third-party candidates can’t have an impact in the upcoming election. In an ABC/Post poll released earlier this week, Mitt Romney and President Obama were dead even among registered voters, 47-47 percent. But when Paul was added as a theoretical independent candidate, he pulled 21 percent support, siphoned mostly from Romney, putting Obama 10 points ahead.
Third-party candidacies often arise in times of economic discontent, and that certainly applies to current times. In an expression of discontent with the major parties, more Americans have identified themselves as independents than as either Democrats or Republicans for nearly two-and-a-half years — the longest run of its kind since ABC/Post polling started in 1981.
That said, an ABC/Post poll completed on Oct. 30 found interest in a nonparty candidate to be broad but not deep. Sixty-one percent responded favorably to the idea, but far fewer, 25 percent, endorsed it strongly.
Doing well takes a popular candidate, and as noted, Paul, Trump and Bloomberg all have challenges.
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