Democrats fear that Tulsi Gabbard may run as a third party or independent candidate in 2020.

Tulsi Gabbard;s congressional photo.

Democrats are concerned that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard may launch a third party or independent candidate bid in 2020. The Hill. Gabbard announced last week that she will not run for her house seat again in 2020 and will be pushing her funds into her presidential campaign. Gabbard has been polling in the single digits and is very unlikely to be the presidential nominee for the Democrats. Gabbard has said that she will not launch a third party run but she has clashed with Democratic leadership on many issues. She also claims that the DNC was rigging the primary campaign against her and has criticized both Democrat's foreign policy and the lack of transparency of the impeachment efforts against President Trump. Democrats are wary of third party runs as many of them blame Jill Stein for their loss in 2016. 

My Comment:

I don't think the Democrats have this right at all. I have seen no evidence that Tulsi Gabbard actually wants to run as a third party candidate. She seems committed to her presidential run and seems like she is going for the main prize, not some irrelevant third party run. 

There is an open question as to why Gabbard hasn't dropped out. She isn't polling very well and she has little chance of becoming a top tier candidate. I think it's for two reasons. First of all Gabbard is a single issue candidate. Much like Eric Swalwell pushed the party to the left on gun rights, Gabbard is trying to push the party in an anti-war direction. She's trying to move the overton window. 

Second of all, I think Gabbard has personal reasons for running. I think it was pretty clear that she was going to be primaried in her house seat. She would almost certainly be out of a job in 2020 if she doesn't find something else to do. Gabbard will probably gain a new job as a media pundit, probably on conservative news. Much like the never-Trump right she's part of her own party that's dead but popular among the other party. Gabbard will likely be the kind of media talking head that goes on conservative shows and ends up agreeing with the hosts most of the time. 

Third, I think Gabbard is looking for some measure of revenge. It's pretty clear that her party turned on her very quick once she went anti-war. Being critical of globalist foreign policy and regime change is enough for the DNC to be against her and it's clear they are playing favorites against her. Having Hillary Clinton and the media falsely call her a Russian agent probably pissed her off as well so she's in the race to expose how unfair the Democrats can be. 

But does that mean she is going to run third party? I doubt it. I don't think Gabbard has enough fans to support a major run for President. Her policies aren't that different from the Democrats other than foreign policy and she has a large group of people that just despise her. 

If she does run though, who would it hurt more? The Democrats seem to think that she would be a spoiler for their candidate but I'm not sure. Gabbard's fairly popular on the right and is usually cited as "one of the good ones". If President Trump got sloppy on foreign policy and got us into a new war somehow, I think Gabbard would take more votes away from the Republicans than the Democrats. She could certainly be a spoiler but not for the party the Democrats think. 

Of course, since both parties are pretty stupid they don't seem to realize this. The Democrats are going to do anything they can to stop a Gabbard run and the GOP will likely encourage it. It's not going to happen regardless, but if it does it will throw a wrench in the 2020 election. Remember, the only incumbent president to lose a 2nd term was George Bush and that was because he had a credible third party challenger. If Gabbard runs and Trump gets squishy on foreign policy it could happen to him too...