Thread by @databyler

i wrote about justin amash! basically

if the election is close

and

he maintains enough votes to actually matter

and

he takes mostly from one candidate

------> people have license to freak out. but none of those ^ conditions are close to given

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…

basically my thinking is that some chunk of the conventional wisdom jumped straight to "amash is running oh my god he's going to spoil it for biden"

which could happen but there are quite a few, completely not certain at all, things that would have to happen first

the election would have to be close enough for him to matter (not clear)
he'd have to maintain a big enough coalition to swing it (not clear, given downward general trend of 3rd parties as elex approaches)
he'd have to disproportionately take from biden (not at all inevitable)

and he's running in a world where a) trump owns the GOP and prob will have less trouble holding his people and b) Dems picked the candidate who is most geared to pick up amash-curious voters

i realize that by tweeting this, i am jinxing everything and all the conditions i'm laying out here ^ as "just one possible path" will now inevitably happen

but it's what i think! so there it is

(also one thing i forgot -- the polling data on amash is pretty thin

so if we're coming up w stories of how he spoils the race, "he grabs suburbanites" isn't the only story

what if he grabs Rs who only somewhat approve of Trump -> get shaken lose by the crisis? who knows)

and who says michigan will be the tipping point state?

it could be, but there are a number of other candidates

okay now i'm done