Justin Amash - the Third Party spoiler

"There are lots of people in history who came in as underdogs who faced a big uphill climb, and they got their message out there and it resonated with the people" - Justin Amash

Justin Amash is a former Republican and has been elected 5 times from Cascade Township, a district in Michigan. He also voted to impeach President Trump, and was known as "Dr. No" for voting against bills backed by fellow Republicans.

On 4th July, 2019, Amash left the Republican party, blaming the hyperpartisanship in politics and saying that it had become almost obligatory for him to legitimize whatever the President wanted him to.

Justin Amash is now seeking the Libertarian party's presidential nomination. He joined the party because he thinks they can pull a lot of votes from the Democrats and Republicans and appeal to voters who are not in support of the other two parties. If he wins the nomination, it will be the fourth consecutive time a former Republican has run for President through their party, which almost makes the Libertarian party seem disposable.

Justin Amash's chances of winning are dim. And, that’sthat primarily because of how deep the duopoly in US politics resides. The only way Amash can win the Presidential elections is if a major party collapsed and a small party took its place.

However, Justin Amash can have a major impact on the Presidential elections as a third party candidate. Third party candidates have the capability to throw the elections to one of the two major parties. In 2016, Trump won in Michigan- Justin Amash's state, by just around 11,000 votes. He needs to be careful not to give any competitive advantage to Trump. In this case, it's most likely that Amash would help incline the elections towards the Democratic party since he is such a strong critic of President Trump.

Written by: Haneen Farid