The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/third-party/)
The New York Times exit polls reported that neither major party candidate reached a 50 percent favorability rating; 18 percent of voters did not have a favorable view of either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, according to Fox News exit polls.
Forget Clinton and Trump, vote strategically. A vote for Gary Johnson isn’t just a protest vote against the two least liked presidential candidates in history. It’s a strategic vote for the next election and the future of our country. This election cycle is a mess. We have a billionaire playboy with a trash mouth who doesn’t know why we just can’t “nuke” people and a former secretary of state who is one of the least liked and most corrupt politicians in history.
Shortly before submitting this column, I slipped an absentee ballot, addressed to the Montgomery County Board of Elections, into a mailbox by the Cornell Store. When filling out that ballot I was presented with four options for president of the United States — many Americans will see those same four options, although some will see fewer, and some will see more. But it is important to recognize that, although I could have technically selected Gov. Gary “What is Aleppo?” Johnson or Dr. Jill “I would not have killed Osama bin Laden” Stein, or written in Evan “Egg McMuffin” McMullin, there were really only two choices on that ballot: Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump. One of those two will become president. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has consistently polled in the high single digits and will mostly likely take the largest share of the vote by a third-party candidate since Ross Perot won 19 percent and 8 percent in 1992 and 1996, respectively.