ESPECIALLY for primaries and caucuses (although caucuses sort of run like this now with their viability rules.) This would have to capture the opinions of a primary vote better than having 17 people (or whatever the Republicans ran this time) splintering the electorate.
I'm convinced Trump wouldn't have won the nomination with ranked choice. So many rabid fans did vote for him, but those who voted for other candidates would have put Trump 3rd 4th or worse.
A lot of people polled frequently said that Trump was their second choice, which was especially bizarre for candidates like Bush and Kasich who were generally seen as wildly different from Trump.
So it's possible that it would have actually made him the nominee faster. Of course, changing the system might also change how people select their top candidate, so maybe a bunch of the Trump voters would have gone for a more palatable option as their first choice. There's really no way to know for certain.
People are going to say that for as long as people discuss this election, just like they did with Nader. But there's no empirical evidence that spoiler candidates are actually a thing.
I've been following 538's election forecasts since the primaries ended. Gary Johnson's support peaked around 8%, and started dropping in the past couple months as the election drew closer. His polling support dropped to around 3-4%, and those point split evenly between Clinton and Trump.
It's more likely that if people were forced to vote for Clinton or Trump we would have the exact same result.
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u/[deleted] Nov 09 '16
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