Mike Pence expected to swerve Trump mention at official launch event – live
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The academic and public intellectual Cornel West could pose a threat to Joe Biden’s hold on the White House, the former Trump strategist Kellyanne Conway said – not because West’s People’s Party candidacy has a chance of winning the race but because it could draw young voters and voters of colour away from the Democratic president.
“Even if you don’t become president, you, as a third-party candidate spoiler, can decide who is the president,” Conway told Fox News.
Conway gave the example of Ross Perot, the millionaire businessman whose third-party run is widely held to have cost George HW Bush dear in 1992, when he was turfed out of the White House by Bill Clinton.
Other third-party candidates who have had an impact on presidential races include Ralph Nader, widely held to have damaged Al Gore in the knife-edge 2000 election against George W Bush.
In 2016, when Conway managed Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton, both the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, and the Green candidate, Jill Stein, made an impact at the polls in states that decided the contest.
Conway continued: “It’s important also … that if you play to win and you’re Cornel West, and you are still not satisfied with the trajectory of the Democratic party being progressive enough for you under a Biden-Harris administration, then you’re going to run to the left of them.”
West, Conway said, is “going to make a play for people who feel forgotten, who feel abandoned by this Democratic party, who feel like nobody’s listening to them and including them.
“It’s part of how Trump won in 2016, but I think he could do it from the left.
“I know him. He’s a super-smart guy. He’s very committed to the principles and policies that he thinks more Americans want to hear.”