Cheat Sheet: The Third Party Presidential Candidates

It’s coming closer to election time, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that something crazy or unprecedented could happen in the coming months.
Trump and Clinton are the most disliked presidential candidates in history, both having an ‘unfavorable’ image with the majority of the U. S. population. Meanwhile, according to a recent Pew Research poll, only 24% of registered voters feel that the next generation of Americans will be better off than folks today.
PICKING UP STEAM But, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, for the first time in almost 20 years, the third-party candidates are getting attention across the board. Gary Johnson (Libertarian) and Jill Stein (Green) are even getting regular mainstream coverage from outlets such as CNN, Vox, The Washington Post, The NY Times, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal.
The poll numbers for Johnson and Stein are respectable, especially among the millennial crowd where they garner around 40% of voter support. When it comes to the general electorate, however, average poll numbers are more muted with Johnson averaging 9% and Stein 3%.
The numbers are not enough to meet the arbitrary 15% threshold for the first round of debates, but the third-party candidates are starting to pick up steam in other areas. For example, Gary Johnson just shattered a fundraising record for the Libertarian Party by raising $5 million in August. Meanwhile, Stein is preparing for a major publicity stunt at Hofstra University in New York – the site of the first Presidential Debate on September 26th.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Sep 30, 2016.