Spoiler alert: Third party candidates aim to give Georgia voters alternatives to Biden and Trump

A presidential candidate and a vice presidential candidate came to metro Atlanta Tuesday to take questions from voters.

Jill Stein from the Green Party and Karina Garcia with the Party of Socialism and Liberation may not be the first candidate names one thinks of, but both said their names will be on Georgia’s ballots this November, and they, along with other third party candidates, could be a factor in the presidential race.

Stein, a physician and left-wing activist, and Garcia, a Chicana organizer and running mate to PSL presidential candidate Claudia De la Cruz, stopped by Masjid Al-Furqan West Cobb Islamic Center for a candidate forum.

There was not much policy disagreement between the two. Both called for an end to the war in Gaza and a one-state solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict. They both advocate for greatly reducing the military budget and increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy to pay for social programs and public services like universal healthcare and higher education while eliminating all student debt.

At the end of the nearly two-hour panel discussion, Garcia announced the PSL had met the current requirements to get third party candidates like De la Cruz onto the November ballot –  7,500 signatures from registered Georgia voters.

“We are definitely going to be on the ballot in the state of Georgia,” she said. “We just collected over 7,500 petitions. We’re actually going to double that just because we know how backward and undemocratic this country is, so we’re going to go ahead and double that, but we just wanted to let you know that we have done that and we’re going to be on the ballot in the state of Georgia.”

Garcia said the PSL is planning to be on the ballot in 24 states, while Stein said the Green Party is set to be on the ballot in every state.

“We will be the one campaign on track right now to be on the ballot for every voter across the country so that we can stand up to empire,” she said. “And let me just say there will be three candidates, there will be three pro-genocide, pro-war, anti-worker candidates on the ballot, and there will be one candidate across the country that will be fighting empire.”

But the rule for third party candidates appearing on Georgia’s ballot could soon be changing. An omnibus election bill passed by the state Legislature but not yet signed by Gov. Brian Kemp includes a provision that would allow third party candidates to appear on Georgia’s ballots if they qualify to appear on ballots in 20 other states.

Kemp has until May 7 to sign the bill, veto it, or allow it to become law without taking action. The American Civil Liberties Union has threatened to sue the state if he signs it over other provisions in the bill.

“We are hopeful that this legislation will be signed by the governor which would then place us on the ballot automatically because we’re already on in a sufficient number of states,” Stein said.

“That would be very nice because we have many ballot drives going on right now at the same time,” she added. “We actually have 75% of the total signature burden already collected for the nation, and it’s like a million signatures that we need. So Georgia is actually a relatively modest part of that, but it would be great if we get on the ballot basically automatically.”

Garcia said she expects the PSL ticket will be on the ballot in at least 24 states, so they’re covered either way, but she said the change could harm others who are not able to muster resources in as many states.

“We’re not surprised by this anti-democratic measure because we know how difficult it is to be on the ballot to begin with.”

“They’re making all kinds of ways to make it impossible for any third party to be able to have a voice in this country,” she added. “But we have the vast majority of people who are on our side. It really just takes a committed group of volunteers to get out there and talk to people, and that we have.”

Spoiler alert?

President Joe Biden famously won Georgia by about 11,000 votes over former President Donald Trump in 2020, and 2024’s race is also expected to be close.

The latest Real Clear Politics polling average shows Stein in third place among third party candidates with about 1% of the vote. Left-wing scholar and activist Cornel West has 1.8%, and Kennedy family scion Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has 6.3%. Trump leads the poll at 43.8% and Biden has 37.5%.

Kennedy and West’s staff told the Recorder by email that they are working on collecting signatures in Georgia and expect to surpass the 7,500 mark ahead of the July deadline, but neither campaign responded to questions about the proposed 20 state rule by publication deadline.

Democrats have been sounding the alarm for months that Kennedy, a former Democrat, could lure away voters that would otherwise have gone for Biden, which they fear could cause a swing state like Georgia to flip from their party’s statewide wins.

Stein said she’s used to being accused of being a spoiler in the 2016 election, but she doesn’t buy it. She said most Green voters were people who otherwise would not have voted.

“And we also strongly believe in the view that candidates have to earn your vote, they don’t own your vote, so it’s anti-democratic to imply that Green votes were taken from Democrats,” she said. “No, Democrats didn’t own those votes, they had to earn them, they failed to earn them.”

Biden’s team appears to see Kennedy as a threat – their anti RFK Jr. strategy has included securing the endorsements of multiple other members of the Kennedy family, including Robert Kennedy Jr.’s own siblings.

But Trump has also expressed a belief that Kennedy could secure votes from anti-Trump Republicans.

“They say he hurts Biden. I’m not sure that that’s true,” he said Monday during a radio interview. “I think he probably hurts both. But he might hurt Biden a little bit more, you don’t know.”

At least one recent poll shows Biden performing better in a race with the big three third party candidates than head to head with Trump. In an NBC poll released over the weekend, voters gave Trump a two-point lead over Biden, 46 to 44, when asked to choose between the two. But when Kennedy, West and Stein’s names were added to the list, Trump’s total dropped to 37 and Biden’s to 39.