On Meet the Press today, Liz Cheney said that a “new conservative party” would form if Trump is the GOP nominee in 2024. The relevant portion of the interview is at about 22 minutes in. A minute later, Chuck Todd said that some believe that a third-party run by Cheney “would be enough to stop Trump.” Cheney didn’t respond directly, but instead repeated her oft-stated line that she will do “whatever it takes” to prevent Trump from becoming president again.

From what I’ve seen, this is the furthest Cheney’s gone to predict a three-way race in 2024 if Trump is the Republican nominee, whether she herself is a third-party candidate. I’ve also heard some say the opposite of what Chuck Todd suggested: that if Cheney were a third-party candidate, she would pull more votes from the Democrat than from Trump. Whichever is the more accurate prediction, it does seem that we need to prepare for the possibility of a three-way race and the “spoiler” effect that may ensue one way or the other.

As I explored in Presidential Elections and Majority Rule, the revised Electoral College system established by the Twelfth Amendment was predicated on an assumption of two-party competition that would result in a winning candidate whose Electoral College majority reflected majority support within the states whose electoral votes were enough to win. But because of changes to how states award their electoral votes that occurred in the Jacksonian Era, the ensuing Electoral College system became incapable of assuring majoritarian winners in the event of a significant third-party candidate. This post-Jacksonian transformation became hugely consequential in 1844, when Polk beat Clay in New York (and thus the Electoral College overall) because of a third-party abolitionist candidate who siphoned votes from Clay (much as Ralph Nader would do to Gore in Florida in 2000). Polk’s victory over Clay in 1844 changed the course of US history significantly, with some historians attributing the Civil War to Polk’s repudiation of the Missouri Compromise. Whatever the merits of that historical debate, is it possible that the 2024 presidential election will be similarly consequential and will turn on the “spoiler” effect of a third-party candidate?