Minor parties hoping for major gains in presidential race

CINCINNATI (WKRC) - The polls have shown it consistently, there are a significant number of Americans whose choice for president is "none of the above.”

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have the two worst negative ratings from voters in American history. Some minor parties are hoping to make major gains,

Clinton and Trump are rallying millions but turning off a lot of others. And with two unpopular candidates on top of the tickets, third party candidates or third and fourth party candidates are getting more attention.

Physician Jill Stein is the Green Party candidate and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is the Libertarians' choice. Both parties say their phone lines and social media sites have been swamped since the major party conventions.

Aaron Harris of the Libertarian Party of Ohio said, “The two best PR firms we could ever have are Hillary and Trump. People are, I see most of the e-mails that come in, people saying, ‘I used to be a Democrat or a Republican but I can't take this. I want a sane alternative. I want a better choice.’”

Gwen Marshall of the Green Party of SW Ohio said, “All of the news media keep talking of the two candidates, which in education we call a self-fulfilling prophecy. As long as people don't know they have a choice, they don't have to pick one or the other. Right now they're not happy with either.”

In a two-way race, the most recent average of national polls shows Hillary Clinton with about a 4.5 point lead over Donald Trump. Put in the Libertarian and Green parties, Clinton keeps about the same percentage lead over Trump. But the two minor parties top 10 percent combined.

Conventional wisdom, which is not always wise, suggests the Libertarian will pull votes from Trump, the Greens from Clinton. But they have no chance of winning the popular vote, let alone the electoral college.

Professor Mack Mariani of Xavier University said, “And so, therefore, most voters at the end of the day will be faced by the fact that this is a binary choice. If you don't get Clinton you get Trump, and if you don't get Trump you get Clinton. So most voters have historically decided they didn't want to throw away their votes and so they'll vote for the lesser of two evils.”

Gary Johnson and Jill Stein were also on the presidential ballot in 2012. In Ohio, their Libertarian and Green Party tickets got just a tad over one percent of the vote combined. In 2016 they're expecting to do better. The most successful third party candidate in recent decades, Ross Perot, 19 percent of the vote in 1992.