Here Longwell & Miller argue that Amash would likely draw votes away from Biden from right-leaning Indie men, citing, correctly, a poll in MI that found inserting @justinamash into the ballot in MI lowered Biden margin against Trump. The argument they put forward about 3rd party https://twitter.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1250408983896248320

balloting's role in electing Trump in 2016 is correct & recreating a multiple candidate field is the top goal of the RNC not only in the presidential race, but also in these key senate races. This is why they are financially supporting Green Party candidates & helping to get them

on the ballot. In the AZ senate race in '18, even w a last minute effort by the GP candidate to push voters to Sinema, GOP microtargeting helped the GP ballot pull 2% of the vote away from Sinema- its a miracle that didn't end up costing the Ds the seat. So, back to someone like

Amash. Here is where I differ from the take offered here in Longwell & Miller's analysis. Polls far out from elections tend to underestimate campaign effects- which reinforce latent partisanship. That makes partisans more likely to vote & Indie leaners more likely to come home.

I am skeptical that some of the right leaning Indies that indicate willingness to vote for Biden in the primary time period, will actually deliver on that promise once they are subjected to campaign effects & targeting designed to "remind" them why it is they align w the GOP

(issues such as guns, abortion, or the Courts, for ex). Now, the COVID19 crisis *may* add a new twist to this, bc of the economic crisis- which may be at the level of the Great Depression. We have never seen something like that in the modern era & although polarization is very,

very strong, I will need data before I'm willing to say right leaning Indies will largely align with Trump by Election Day given the economic factors. But take that away, what we should expect is that these 9 pt margins Biden was enjoying in Dec and Jan in some of the swing state

polls *should* disappear as right-leaning Indies come home after being reminded how terrible Dems are (this is something the GOP campaign apparatus is excellent at, BTW). So unlike these authors, I see that pool as highly unstable & likely to drift to Trump. Under that context,

giving them a non-Democrat alt to vote for, one that is robustly, obnoxiously conservative, economically AND socially (and that social part is key bc it prevents what I'll call the Libertarian "pot" effect) in one strategic area, MI & WI might actually be advantageous.