Did Colorado’s 3rd Party Candidates Live Up To The Hype?

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Photo: Lily Tang Williams
Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Lily Tang Williams.

Photo: Lily Tang WilliamsThird-party candidates for President in Colorado fared well compared to recent presidential elections, though candidates for down-ballot races in Colorado garnered about the same percentage of the vote as they have in past contests.

Libertarian party candidate Gary Johnson won 5% of the vote, or about 128,000 votes, with the Green Party's Jill Stein and independent candidate Evan McMullin getting about 1% each.

Johnson won fewer votes in Colorado than early polls predicted, though he won a higher percentage of the vote in Colorado than he did nationally.

In the state's down-ballot races, third-party candidates won about the same share of the votes as they have in past presidential elections. The Libertarian party's Lily Tang Williams won about 3.5 percent of the vote in her quest for the Senate.

Exit polls indicate unaffiliated candidates were more likely to choose Donald Trump for president but only by a few more percentage points than Hillary Clinton.

Seth Masket, political science professor at the University of Denver, and Jay North, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Colorado, spoke with Colorado Matters host Nathan Heffel.