The Spoiler Effect

I have long held that the so-called spoiler effect was and is a myth. While I have not changed my opinion on that front. After meticulous tallying of presidential election results from 1824 to 2020. I have come to realize that it is much more than a myth. In those 196 years and 49 election cycles, I have identified just seven hypothetical spoilers. Number seven may surprise you.

Looking at the Wrong Metric

I watched several videos and read several articles that talked about the spoiler effect. They all mentioned a few different elections to support the idea of a spoiler effect and how it impacted that election. The one election they all had in common was 1992 and 1996, with Ross Perot. But in every single election mentioned, regardless of the era, they all looked at the wrong metric.

This is the problem with listening to statistical data If you don’t listen with a critical ear, you can easily be duped. On one hand, people don’t want to listen to a bunch of statistics; they’re boring. On the other hand, if you quote one simple statistic they can all understand, it’s easy to obfuscate and deceive. What is the wrong metric? The percentage of the national popular vote.

The Correct Metric

So what is this so-called correct metric to be looking at that I speak of? To be honest, the answer is boring and tedious, but in a nutshell, it is the state popular vote tallies. Do not fret, though; I won’t bore you to death with the gory details. It was a mind-numbing task that I wish I could have pawned off on a nonexistent staff member. I will, however, tell you about my findings and give you direct access to the raw data.

Spoilers Claimed to Have Happened but Didn’t

In a discussion about the spoiler effect with some people from the Forward Party [Link to web site]. One person mentioned the author of a book that mentioned the election of 1844 as a potential spoiler. My analysis shows that the spoiler did not take place. The first and only hypothetical spoiler to happen in the 1800s was in 1888. 

There were indeed hypothetical spoilers in three states in 1844: Michigan, New York, and Ohio. In this hypothetical situation, Polk, who actually wins, still wins; despite losing Michigan and New York, he gained Ohio. The win was a bit narrower than the actual, but a win none the less.

The 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln was another claimed spoiler that did not happen. What hypothetically happened was that Lincoln won by a larger margin than he actually did. 

The First Hypothetical Spoiler Effect

In 1888, there were four candidates for president: Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Clinton Fisk, and Alson Streeter. The historical winner was, of course, Benjamin Harrison. In the hypothetical version of this election, there were eleven states with hypothetical spoilers. This particular hypothetical election would have seen Grover Cleveland become president a full four years before he actually did. Allowing him to hypothetically serve a full term before being assassinated in his second term.

Methodology of Analysis

By now, you may be wondering how I arrived at my conclusions. The basic principle of the spoiler effect is that third-party candidates take votes away from the two main-party candidates. 

With this in mind, I tallied all the third-party votes in each state and added those votes to the main-party candidate that lost the state. If that new total was greater than the total of the actual winning candidate, a hypothetical spoiler would occur in that state. Thus, the loser now becomes the winner and gets the electoral votes for that state. If no hypothetical spoiler occurred in a state, there simply was no spoiler for that state.

After each state’s popular vote was re-tallied, the votes of the third-party candidates went to the historical loser. The electoral vote was re-tallied to determine the hypothetical election winner. If the hypothetical electoral vote indicated a new winner, that election is counted as a spoiler.

The Six of the Seven Spoiler Effects

As mentioned, I have identified seven hypothetical spoilers. The first was in 1888. The 1900s saw four hypothetical spoilers: 1912, 1968, 1992, and 1996. For those years, a new hypothetical president is as follows: Theodore Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, George H.W. Bush, and Bob Dole, respectively.

The thing that surprised me the most about the Ross Perot years was the sheer number of states that had spoilers. Nearly all of them. I anticipated that there would probably be enough hypothetical spoilers to cause a hypothetical spoiler year. There were fewer hypothetical spoilers in 1996, but only a few.

The year 2000 saw the sixth hypothetical spoiler year, making three in a row. That would have given us Al Gore as president of the United States in 2000. The hypothetical electoral vote of 289 to 249.

Lucky Number Seven

This one surprised me, which I did not expect at all. There were only five hypothetical spoilers, but they were enough to turn the election on its head. Given the massive controversy surrounding this election, I am, of course, referring to the 2020 election. I will not discuss the accusations of election fraud made by Trump and his supporters. But it seems to me that blaming the spoiler effect for the election loss would have been a better strategy.

Here is the data

Spoiler Effect: a Logical Fallacy

Throughout this article, you have seen me use the word hypothetical a lot. Primarily because my entire analysis is entirely hypothetical, there is just no way to know how a third-party voter would have voted if they did not have a third-party to vote for. 

The data clearly shows that there is only a one in seven chance that any given election would potentially have a different outcome if there were only two candidates to choose from. If and only if those voters who would have voted third-party otherwise vote for the other candidate that didn’t win. More often than not, the outcome remains the same. In those states, there is a potential for a so-called spoiler effect to occur. The greater probability is that the outcome remains unchanged.

The so-called spoiler effect is, on it’s face, a logical fallacy, at least in how it is presented. Because it ignores the possibility of an unfavorable outcome over the favored outcome.

Parties Do Not Own Voters or Votes

With gerrymandering still very much a problem in some states. Add to that the fact that ballot access laws in some states are extremely strict, bordering on draconian. The so-called spoiler effect adds insult to injury, making it seem like voters don’t own their own votes. When, in fact, they very much do own their votes and not the political parties.

A common argument against third-party voting is, “Now is not the time to be supporting a protest vote.” Bernie Sanders was quoted in 2016 making that argument. So when will it be time? Will it ever be time? When is an election ever not important? What does too important even mean, and how do you quantify it?

No Good Arguments

There has not been any good argument against third-party voting, not even the so-called, “They are not going to win anyway,” argument. That one is just plain arrogant and condescending. But it to is just another logical fallacy. Yes, historically a third party has not won a presidential election since 1860 and 1864.

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican candidate to win the presidential election. The Republican party was at that time a third-party and had only been in existence for a few years. Then in 1864 Lincoln ran under a new party called the National Union. It was set up by the Republicans to get votes from several other parties that just would not vote for a Republican.

Just because the deck has been stacked against third-parties does not automatically follow that they will lose. It is highly probable that they will lose, but not impossible. Sooner or later the Law of Averages and/or Murphy’s Law may come around and poke its head out.

Fact or Fiction

Is the Spoiler Effect fact or fiction? My verdict, it’s more fiction than fact. Why? Because there is no conclusive, objectively verifiable data to indicate otherwise. One can quote expert opinions that take into account events of the time in any given election. But that would be an appeal to authority fallacy.

I fully acknowledge that a so-called Spoiler Effect “could potentially” happen; however, without objectively verifiable data to prove that third-party voters would have voted for R or D if they didn’t have any other choice, it just hasn’t happened. The opinions of experts are sometimes valid when making a decision about somethings. In this context though, opinions are not objective, they are subjective.

Objective Evidence is Possible

There is a way to get such objective data with an anonymous survey of registered voters in any state where a suspected spoiler occurred. Ask them if, if they had voted for a third-party candidate, if they would vote for a main-party candidate. If there were no other choice but the main parties. Then who would they have voted for if they answered yes? A comparison of those results to the results of the election in question will indicate objectively if a spoiler occurred or not.