Organization Seeks to Run Third Party Candidate for Unsatisfied Voters

Better For America aims to change the 'historically bad choice' the U.S. faces in the presidential election.

By Lydia Goerner Published on June 23, 2016

Many Americans are unsatisfied with the choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the United States’ 45th president. The organization Better For America was launched June 14 with just such Americans in mind and is planning running an independent candidate for president.

The group is made up of religious leaders and political operatives and is currently choosing a candidate to run. According to The Federalist, the organization’s chief strategist has confirmed that three names have committed to run if they are chosen.

Better For America’s website states that their mission is “to get a credible candidate on the ballot who can win both red AND blue states, presenting the nation with a third party option who changes the historically bad choice we’re facing this fall.”

No independent candidate has won an Electoral College vote since George Wallace in 1968. The Federalist reported:

Even Ross Perot, who netted nearly 20 percent in the 1992 election, failed to win a single state. So what makes Better For America believe this year can be different? The short answer is the unfavorable ratings of both Clinton and Trump.

Better For America’s launch corresponds with new polls showing Trump’s popularity decline. According to CBS News, polls this week showed Clinton up by between four and nine points. Trump is also falling behind in several swing states.

John Kingston III, a former Republican delegate and the founder and chair of Better For America, wrote an opinion piece for CNN about his decision to decline to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention.

“I could not support a candidate like Donald Trump, whose behavior disqualifies him to be a PTA member, let alone president,” Kingston wrote.

Kingston reached out to colleagues and friends who felt the same way. Better For America was born from a “remarkable grassroots coalition of lawyers, pollsters, ballot access professionals and others who shared the belief that something had to be done.”

Trump has also struggled to raise funds for his campaign, which has raised $3.1 million in private donations, while Clinton’s has pulled in approximately $26 million. CBS News reports that the super PACs supporting the candidates also had a large gap: the biggest pro-Trump group had $500,000, while the main pro-Clinton group had $52 million at the end of May.

Trump blamed some of these financial difficulties on the lack of support he is receiving from the Republican Party, Los Angeles Times reported. Although he feels Clinton is receiving more support from her party, he said he feels confident he can fund himself.

“I have a lot of cash; I may do it in the general election,” Trump said. “But it would be nice to have some help from the party.”

But Better For America “is not an attempt to undermine Trump,” according to The Federalist. Better For America plans to win.

Kingston pointed to the polling done by Data Targeting, Inc. on the viability of a third-party candidate, which suggests that 65 percent of respondents would be willing to support a candidate besides Trump or Clinton. The research also found that 90 percent of millennials wanted to see a third party candidate on the ballot.

A possible third party candidate is Libertarian Gary Johnson, though current support for him is quite modest. A CNN poll showed Johnson with 9 percent support nationwide. Jill Stein, the likely Green Party nominee, has 7 percent support.

CNN held a live town hall event Wednesday night with Johnson and his running mate Bill Weld. “The two-party system is a two-party dinosaur, and they’re about to come in contact with the comet here,” Johnson told CNN’s Chris Cuomo.

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