Democrats panicked by third-party candidates drawing support away from Hillary Clinton are ramping up their attacks against Gary Johnson and warning that a vote for a third party is a vote for Donald Trump.
Liberal groups are passing around embarrassing videos of Mr. Johnson and running ads against him, warning about his positions on issues like climate change that are important to young voters and independents.
The Clinton campaign will rely heavily on Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the coming weeks as it seeks to shore up its deficit among young voters and left-leaning independents who are not energized by her campaign and are considering casting a vote for either Johnson or Green Party nominee Jill Stein.
The Libertarian ticket of Mr. Johnson and Bill Weld is running surprisingly strong among young voters — a cog in the Obama coalition that Democrats need to turn out for Mrs. Clinton if she’s to pull away from Mr. Trump.
Whether Mrs. Clinton reaches those voters could determine the outcome of critical battleground states like Colorado, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
Democrats still vividly remember the 2000 election and blame Ralph Nader for costing Al Gore the presidency in the closest election in history. They’re worried history could repeat itself in 2016, as third-party candidates are attracting more interest than they have in decades.
The Clinton campaign and its liberal allies are increasingly taking the threat from Mr. Johnson and Ms. Stein seriously, making direct appeals to young voters and punching down at the third-party candidates they view as potential spoilers.
“Young voters are suggesting that they’re uncomfortable with Clinton and are using Johnson and Stein as protest votes,” said Doug Schoen, a former official in the Bill Clinton administration. “The campaign must make the case that unless young people vote for Clinton, they’re effectively voting for Trump.”
NextGen Climate, the group run by liberal billionaire and environmental activist Tom Steyer, is on the ground in eight battleground states with a message that is almost exclusively aimed at reaching the millennial voters who are energized by the issue of climate change.
Last week, the group threw six figures behind digital ads mocking Mr. Johnson as a climate change denier and warning millennials that climate change will cost them trillions of dollars.
A source at NextGen told The Hill the group will be looking to turn out young voters for Hillary Clinton and down-ballot Democrats with a texting campaign in the battleground states and a carpooling service that will drive them to the polls.
The Libertarians have also attracted the ire of a group called ShareBlue, which is owned by longtime Clinton ally David Brock. The unabashedly pro-Clinton, for-profit media company has a strong following in the realm of progressive social media and has been using its platform in part to hammer Mr. Johnson as a flaky Republican.
ShareBlue CEO Peter Daou, a veteran of John Kerry’s and Mrs. Clinton’s past presidential campaigns, told The Hill he’s targeting Mr. Johnson and Mr. Weld from the policy side and making the case for why their platform should be anathema to progressives.
This story originally appeared at www.thehill.com