… Depending on how you average the polling, Biden is either up or down a point or two against former President Donald Trump (the most likely GOP nominee at this point). This is important because if the polls were pointing to a blowout, it would take a very popular third-party candidate to change the outcome of the general election.
Instead, all it may take to affect that outcome is for a sliver of the electorate to back a third-party candidate instead of either Biden or Trump in a hypothetical matchup.
In fact, the only election I can point to in the past 50 years in which a third-party nominee probably cost one candidate the election was 2000, when Democrat Al Gore lost Florida – and the presidential election – by 537 votes. The polls showed that more of Green Party nominee Ralph Nader’s voters would have cast ballots for Gore and not Republican George W. Bush had Nader not been an option. CONTINUED
Harry Enten, CNN
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