Third-party voters march side-by-side with Clinton backers to protest Trump
AUSTIN – In the morning hours after Donald Trump became president-elect, Ricardo Correa started a Facebook page he titled “Thwart Trump,” with an encircled picture of Trump and a diagonal line across it.
He envisioned a site where protesters could organize their opposition to the Republican president-elect, whom he said he opposes for his views on women and minorities, among other issues.
But Correa, 39, isn't a Hillary Clinton supporter either. He didn’t vote for Clinton, Trump's Democratic rival. Instead, he cast his ballot for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, joining the more than five million voters nationwide who voted for Stein and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.
Democrats have criticized third-party voters for potentially pilfering votes from Clinton and helping Trump capture the presidency. Green Party supporters in particular, whose party is left-leaning and more closely aligns with the Democratic Party, were accused of helping propel Trump to the White House. On Twitter, as elections results came in, many used the hashtag #AmericaIsOverParty to criticize those who voted for Stein or Johnson.
Now, as thousands of people take to the streets in protest of Trump, voters like Correa have joined them, standing side-by-side with the very Clinton supporters who blame them for costing their candidate the election.
Lainie Duro, 46, of Austin, is one of those third-party voters.
On Election Day, Duro read with concern a post on a friend’s Facebook page that warned that they would “stab every third-party voter I see.” The comment drew hundreds of “Likes.”
Still, she she voted for the Green Party, as she has done most of her life. Her vote for Stein was a protest against Clinton, whom she strongly opposed. Like many other Green Party voters, Duro said she would have voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s rival in the Democratic primaries, had he been on the ballot.
Since then, Duro said she has attended two anti-Trump rallies in Austin and opened up her home as a meeting place for protesters and activist workshops. She hasn't felt any backlash for her vote. Instead, she said, everyone appears to be focused on opposing Trump.
“You can’t build coalitions by telling people they’re dumb,” Duro said. “Democrats like to trash us and toss us aside – until they need us to protest in the street.”
It remains unclear just what role third-party voters played in Trump’s win. Clinton would have still needed to capture a large percentage of fickle, independent voters to truly flip the script on Trump, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
“The third-party vote doesn’t appear to have been the key factor in Democrat Hillary Clinton’s defeat at the hands of Republican Donald Trump last week,” it said.
Trump won popular vote counts in the crucial states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania by a combined margin of 107,330 votes, helping him capture a majority in the Electoral College. In those states, Stein alone won 130,578 votes, according to election results by Paste BN.
In the key battleground state of Florida, Trump’s margin of victory was 119,770 votes, while third-party candidates combined tallied 270,026.
Bruce Wright, a Florida-based activist and head of the Pinellas County Green Party, said Clinton’s relationship with the Saudi family, support of the Iraq War and ties to corporate money made her an untenable candidate. He voted for Stein.
“No regrets,” Wright said. “I never regret when I choose to vote my conscience. The loss can really only be blamed on Hillary.”
Since the election, Wright has used his radio show, the Revolutionary Road Radio Show, to denounce Trump and call on protesters to galvanize. On Sunday, he spoke at a rally of more than 700 people in St. Petersburg, warning of the dangers of a Trump presidency.
The recent protests appear stronger than those he participated in after the contentious election of George W. Bush in 2000 and those in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq three years later, he said. All groups – Clinton supporters, third-party voters, socialists –appear to get along, he said.
“What you’re seeing emerge is the independent, third-party people and people who didn’t vote hitting the street,” Wright said. “We have to be in the streets to hold [Trump] accountable. If he does stray as president, we have our work cut out for us.”
Unlike Duro, Correa said his wasn’t a protest vote; he strongly supported Stein, even though he realized fewer votes for Clinton meant more votes for Trump. His hope is that one day third parties will garner enough support to enter presidential debates and become more mainstream.
“I voted for someone who has a clean record, who has a compassionate and robust stand on the dignity of people,” Correa said. “My vote was for principle, dignity and the planet.”
Until then, he’ll likely continue voting third party.
“We need a real progressive voice in the debate,” Correa said. “We need more ideas so that those bad ideas can be challenged.”