Amash has been a fiasco in Congress and he is a Never Trumper, less than useless. An appeal to his ego to try to get Trump out by syphoning off a key couple % points as Libertoonians have done in countless political races can be irresistible.
To wit: 2016. States that Libertarian Gary Johnson kept Trump from winning: Nevada (6 EV), Colorado (9 EV), New Mexico (5 EV), Minnesota (10 EV), New Hampshire (4 EV) & Maine’s 1st & majority vote (3 EV). That’s a whopping 37 Electoral Votes that a Libertarian was worth in handing those states to the Butcheress of Benghazi. Throw in Michigan’s 16 EVs and that’s 53 that Amash could potentially cost Trump.
Remember, the Libertarians aren’t there to win, they’re there to hand winnable races to Democrats. That’s all they have to do.
Shilly won well over 50% in Maine-1.
I doubt very much all Johnson voters would have voted for Trump. These are people that made a conscious choice to toss their vote while knowing what was at stake. Many would have tossed it on someone else, stayed home, or voted Shillery.
To win NV for example, Trump would have needed over 70% of Johnson’s votes, that’s assuming NONE would go to Hillary. I don’t know if anyone did an exit poll of Johnson’s voters second choice but I guarantee you it was not close to that kind of differential.
To win MN he’d have needed 40% of Johnson’s votes (again with none to Hillary). Feasible. But other than ultra-close NH, you can’t say for sure third parties cost Trump any E votes.
One could even argue it’s good to give Never Trumpers (and uncommited dem leaners) a non-democrat outlet for their votes (the mathematical equivalent of not voting at all). It’s really hard to say not having any specific data.
Lets analyse him as a potential liartarian nominee in comparison to Johnson.
He is a pure Paultard as opposed to a more centrist social lib type like Johnson. And “pro-life” though he’s cast votes at odds with that assertion.
So he’s more appealing to traditional Libertarian voters and Paultard Republicans (bad for us as these people will not ever vote dem)
While being less appealing to establishment GOP Trumper haters (possibly bad if these voters just go dem or good if they hold their noses for Trump)
And much less appealing to dem leaners (bad).
He’s also less prominent than Johnson (good). I wouldn’t be so certain he’d be much of a special threat in his home state given he’s just a Congressman. Illinois was not even close to being John Anderson’s best state in 1980, paper tiger Virgil Goode got 0.34% in Virginia in 2012. And Trump won MI with Johnson taking 3.57% and Castle (Taxpayers/Constitution) and McMuffin taking another 0.4% between them. I can’t see Amash doing any better than Johnson did in MI.
All in all I’d say him as the Libertarian nominee wouldn’t be good for us but nothing to panic about. If one were super worried about Amash the smart play would be to ensure he’s given a free ride to keep his house seat so he doesn’t run for President.
Obviously we shouldn’t do that. I’m sick of this chump spouting lib talking points.
Good news is the state primary is very late, August 7th. So he can’t lose the House primary and then jump into the Presidential race.