MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
For more on what Elon Musk would need to do to get a new party on congressional ballots and how they might affect the midterm election, we called Mac McCorkle. He is a professor of public policy at Duke University. It's a little tongue twister there (laughter). Good morning, Professor McCorkle. Thanks for joining us.
MAC MCCORKLE: Hello, hello.
MARTIN: Look; it's unclear whether Musk has taken the necessary legal steps to officially launch what he's calling the America Party. But what actually has to happen to get this idea for a third party off the ground?
MCCORKLE: A lot of ballot work in a lot of states. It's a very formidable hurdle and one that - American history would suggest that a third party effort like this won't be a winning effort. But the important role it can serve is as a spoiler. Think of 1912, when Teddy Roosevelt broke the Republican coalition. And Woodrow Wilson was able to be elected not because he had a majority of the vote, but because the Republican vote was split. So the role for somebody like Musk, which might not be that hospitable to him - he might not like the idea - is that of a spoiler - not that he wins House seats, but that he shaves margins, especially off Republican candidates, and Democrats win.
MARTIN: Oh, well, we've seen that. We've seen that before, like in the Bill Clinton, Ross Perot, George Bush...
MCCORKLE: Exactly.
MARTIN: George H. W. Bush. So, you know, we've seen that even more recently than 1912. OK, what are the actual mechanics here? And do you think Elon Musk is actually prepared to do that, to actually get his lines on (ph) - get somebody? And do you need a candidate? Do you need an actual candidate to get on the ballot? Or do you just need the party to be on the ballot and then you could recruit your candidates later?
MCCORKLE: In most cases, in almost all cases, given that it's new, he will need both. He'll need candidates, which would require a lot of vetting. Now, there is a possibility that there are the states where Andrew Yang has a party - a small party or the libertarians. They're usually at the higher level, not at the House level. But he might, in essence, be able to borrow an existing line and set up a candidate that way. But it's very, very formidable - the problems.
Again, they're very formidable problems, but all he really has to do is take 2% or 3% away from the Republicans. And again, the other imponderable here is we don't know how this party is going to form. Third parties do tend to take away some vote from Democrats. You can even find some political scientists who say that Perot took equally from the Republicans and Democrats. That's hard to believe, but third parties are imponderable. They're not entities that are going to win, but they're entities that could change the margins, which are really important in swing districts.
MARTIN: Wait, wait. To jump in here, you said that third parties tend to take more from Democrats. Why is that? Is that true?
MCCORKLE: No, they tend to take - a lot of political scientists will tell you that they take more equally from both parties.
MARTIN: They take more equally from both parties.
MCCORKLE: But you look at the Teddy Roosevelt example, and that was a split in the Republican coalition. And so when you think that right now, this looks like it's going to be a split in the Republican coalition and could take marginal votes away from Trump and the Republicans.
MARTIN: But that doesn't seem likely since the polling shows that Republican voters are extremely loyal to President Trump. But we also know that Democrats broadly recoil at Elon Musk's tactics and, you know, his current sort of political sort of perspective. So how much of an impact could he really have?
MCCORKLE: Yeah, again, it may be very marginal. But a couple of percentage points can matter. Musk is not popular. So if this becomes just a race about - an effort about Elon Musk personally, that will diminish any possibility. But if it becomes send Washington a message that the budget deficit is just completely out of whack, especially in midterms, some of the MAGA base is not going to be interested if Trump is not on the ballot. And there could be some people who just say, let me go vote and send them a message.
MARTIN: OK, we have to leave it there for now. That is Professor Mac McCorkle from Duke University. Professor, thanks so much.
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