Amash could have big impact on 2020 race
U.S. Rep. Justin Amash’s decision to run for president as the Libertarian Party candidate could wind up being a significant moment in the 2020 race.
Exactly why and how isn’t entirely clear.
Amash has been toying with a third-party run since a welldocumented rift between him and the Republican Party, which he left symbolically on July 4 to become an independent.
Amash, who said late Tuesday that he’ll change his party affiliation to Libertarian, was a founding member of the tea partyoriented House Freedom Caucus, but his politics always have skewed more libertarian, and he said he became frustrated with the GOP over time.
He went on to support the impeachment of President Donald
Trump, even as all of his former party mates in the House voted against it.
The case for him being a significant presence in the 2020 race is readily apparent. He’s not just a sitting congressman and former Republican, but he also hails from one of the most important states in the 2020 election: Michigan.
The state went for Trump by just 0.2 percentage points in 2016 — the thinnest margin of any state. That means even a modestly strong showing by a Libertarian nominee theoretically could swing the state and potentially the presidency.
Exactly to whose benefit, though?
Being a former Republican with conservative fiscal policies could attract GOP-leaning voters who are disillusioned with Trump but perhaps unwilling to move over to the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Amash also represents one of 14 Michigan congressional districts — and a conservative-leaning one at that, with the district going for Trump in 2016 by 10 points. A relatively strong showing in his home area could help him gain significant votes statewide.
Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, himself a former Republican governor, took 3.6 percent in the state in 2016.
But there are also plenty of reasons to believe that Amash, assuming he’s not actually competing for a win, could wind up helping Trump.
A poll conducted in May by the Detroit News, for instance, showed that Biden led Trump in Michigan by 12 points in a headto-head race, 53-41. But adding Amash to the equation cut Biden’s margin in half, with Biden leading 45-39 and Amash pulling a significant 10 percent.
Amash also drew 16 percent of independent voters in that poll, reducing Biden’s 13-point lead among them to a tie with Trump.
Other evidence also suggests a formidable third-party candidate would benefit Trump.
The universe of voters who dislike both major-party candidates in 2020 is smaller than it was in 2016, when we had two of the most unpopular nominees in modern history. Still, Biden’s advantage among them is well documented and remarkably consistent in polling.
And what they suggest is that voters who are disillusioned with both of their top options in 2020 are primed to help Biden significantly and have little interest in voting for Trump. Giving them a formidable third option — especially in Michigan — could cost Biden more than Trump.
Trump seemed to welcome Amash in a tweet Wednesday, casting him as unable to win re-election to the House as an independent. He also suggested he might hurt the Democrats more than Green Party candidate Jill Stein did in 2016.
All of that said, it’s early. While voters might have heard of Amash, they probably don’t know much about him besides his support for impeachment. If he runs a serious campaign and people come to understand his platform, perhaps that would be more attractive to conservatives who might otherwise support Trump.